Expert: Daniel Humphrey - 2/9/2009

Question
Thank you again for you very helpful answers, I am wonder why I cannot run the plumbing from the street to the inside of the house to where ever I need too via a drilled hole in the concrete block, then seal the hole, cover the exposed pipe with insulator wrap and then cover that with some sort of hard cover? I would also like your thoughts on the easiest way to run the wiring, I do not mind if the conduit for the wiring is exposed.

Answer
Dear Lee,

It is best to keep the plumbing completely buried (getting heat from the ground) or exposed to inside air (getting heat from the room). An insulated pipe exposed to the cold can still easily freeze overnight if there is little or no water movement. It must get its heat from someplace.

Study up on how water pipes are normally set up from the street. Your water utility can give you some general information. If you are buying your water, you will have a water meter in a frost-free place, and from there the supply line to the house is normally one inch. You may have a pressure regulator in that frost-proof enclosure also to get the water pressure down to 50 or 60 psi from whatever pressure the water main is, especially if it surges.

Running the water pipes in the sand beneath the slab is by far the easiest way to distribute water throughout the house.

Conduit wiring along the wall is fairly easy, giving you the chance of adding wires. the hardest part is measuring and bending and fitting the conduit and receptacles. With the right tools and technique, it could be a DIY project. Study up on conduit if you go that route. There is a specific way it has to be done--sizes of conduit and length of run and numbers and gauge of wires must match up. In a concrete structure, conduit will always be used somewhere.

Daniel