Freeze Protection in Plumbing Solar Well Pump
You can protect your solar well pump from freezing in a few different ways:
- Use a pitless adapter and keep all pipe below the frost line for your area (ask around if you’re not sure what it is where you live but often 24″)
Especially for pressure systems - With the RPS 200 through 800 helical models, you can allow the water in the pipe to drain back into the well when the sun goes down and the pump is no longer pumping. The helical rotor within your RPS solar well pump will allow this to happen. No water in your pipes means no freezing, but the pump will have to work each morning to refill the pipes before you’ll make progress filling your tank. This only works if you do not have a check valve in the system and your pipe from well head to tank is not excessively long or a large diameter (ie. large quatity of water). Be sure also you avoid a siphon by having your pipe outlet above the highest level of the tank.
- If you are going to use a check valve somewhere (necessary in a pressure system or to prevent backflow), many add a weep hole below ground level on your drop pipe. This gives the system protection against freezing below the check valve but pressure will slowly be released so the pump might cycle a little bit more (this is fine with all RPS pumps as they are slow start/stop). Anything above the check valve is still at risk of freezing, so place it accordingly.
