The Best Way to Protect Water Lines in Your Attic from Freezing

This video shows you how to use insulation to keep water lines in your attic from freezing. There are few things more disruptive than frozen or burst water pipes in your attic! The method I show here focuses on creating a "tent" over top of the water lines using batt fiberglass. We are using heat from the home to keep the water lines from freezing. Really, we are just raising the thermal barrier of the attic in this area by a few inches. You can also use electric heat tape, but I have seen those fail in attics and cause water lines to freeze and burst because when they fail they usually don't send an "alert" that they've failed. This method can also be used for water lines on exterior walls. The main factor is this: Never, ever, place insulation between the water lines and the heated / interior surface. Placing insulation between the water lines and the heated surface has the effect of insulating the water lines "to the outside." This is also the reason that the foam pipe wrapping is not nearly as effective. You can actually block heat from your house from reaching the water pipes by using this stuff. After we finished prepping this attic we top coated the existing fiberglass insulation with 9" inches of new cellulose insulation to create an R-49 level insulation layer in this attic. We have been using this technique in homes for 15 years and Pittsburgh gets cold winters, sometimes with temperatures going down to below 0 degrees F, and that is awful cold. We have never had a customer call and say that water pipe we have insulated with this method has frozen or burst. There is one caveat -- you have to heat your home! The foam pipe wraps are good for insulating radiator pipes in a basement if you don't want to lose heat from them, but not for insulating water pipes in an attic or crawl space against freezing. I have seen foam pipe wraps fail multiple times. If you live in the Pittsburgh area and would like Insulwise to help you make your home more comfortable and energy efficient, you can call us at 412-260-6701. You can also click this link and leave us your information. https://www.insulwise.com/contact/ Thank you! #diy #frozenpipes #atticinsulation #preventpipesfreezing