# Freeze proof house



## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

I've got an old house that used to be poorly insulated. When the furnace quit you could feel the cold air wash across the room.

Even as poorly insulated it was and how quickly the temp would drop into the 40's it seemed as though there was something that prevented the house from dropping below freezing for at least a day or 2. 

The house has a basement so I think that is where the heat came from to prevent the house from freezing within a couple of hours.

This has me thinking.

What if a person were to dig a 5-6' diameter dry well 10-20' deep directly under the house. Then cap the well and run a pipe straight to the bottom of the well. That pipe would start at the floor level so that cold indoor air would go to the bottom and allow the warmer air supplied by the earth to rise into the living quarters. In theory that should prevent the house from ever dropping below ground temp which in this area is around 50 degrees.

A person could also use the well to cool indoor air in the summer by running a loop of liquid down to the bottom of the well and then back up into a radiator.

Is there any glaring flaws to this idea?


----------



## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

Its already being done-----for years now----geothermal for one example.


----------



## oldasrocks (Oct 27, 2006)

An old cousin of mine did this about 100 yrs ago. He dug a pit under his one room house about 20 ft deep.` He installed floor grates on each end of the house. In the summer a fan would bring up the cool air and in the winter the cold air would go down and warm up to 55 degrees. 55 degree air was cheaper to heat to 70. A wood stove set on the other grate pulled the air out of the pit.

It smelled musty in his house all the time and he had mold problems.


----------



## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

Geothermal uses buried pipe although the well casing could be considered a pipe. This would be an air chamber that extends into the ground.

It sounds like it would be best to seal it from the house. That wouldn't be hard to do.


----------



## Studhauler (Jul 30, 2011)

fishhead said:


> A person could also use the well to cool indoor air in the summer by running a loop of liquid down to the bottom of the well and then back up into a radiator.


My grandfather did this using cool lake water. It did cool some, but it didn't remove any humidity so it didn't work real well. I suppose if you were in a dry climate it would work.

Here is what I use to freeze proof my house.










I runs off of propane and uses no electricity.

:viking:


----------



## PorkChopsMmm (Aug 16, 2010)

I used this concept in my small super-insulated well pump house. We had -30 degrees this year and it never froze or had any issues -- absolutely no extra heat provided except what the pump produced and the temperature of the water in the pressure tank. It works but like others have said I probably wouldn't used it for my whole house due to moisture issues.


----------



## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

I think if one looks up earth air tubes, http://www.earthairtubes.com/

https://www.google.com/search?num=100&newwindow=1&rlz=1T4GGNI_enUS543US544&q=earth++air+tubes&oq=earth++air+tubes&gs_l=serp.12..0l2j0i22i30.105174.105174.0.106979.1.1.0.0.0.0.446.446.4-1.1.0.chm_loc%2Chmss2%3Dfalse%2Chms2min%3D10%2Chms2max%3D10%2Chmtb%3D120%2Chmta%3D1440%2Chmrde%3D0-0%2Chmde%3D1-0%2Chmmpp1%3D1-0%2Chmmpp2%3D1-0%2Chmffs%3D10000...0...1.2.48.serp..0.1.445.mtNDAXpnzyQ


----------

