Protecting a barrel of water in frost: grandfather's life hack, which came in handy at the cemetery
A central water supply system or your own well on the site is all great and wonderful. But we, for example, did not always have such benefits of civilization.
Previously, the water in the country was connected closer to summer, when the seedlings are actively growing and they need to be watered. For sowing water, they have been harvested since autumn - in metal barrels. And so that these barrels did not burst in the cold, it was necessary to prepare them accordingly.
If you leave a barrel filled with water in the cold, at best it will squeeze the bottom out. At worst, the metal will burst and the barrel can be thrown out to the metal collection point.
It seems everyone had physics at school. But just remember how water behaves in the cold. When cooled to "-4" degrees, water (ice) decreases in volume, just like the absolute majority of all other liquids. But with further cooling (temperature below "-4"), the ice begins to expand.
To prevent the barrel from bursting due to the increase in ice volume, deformations must be compensated. I think the easiest way to do this is to leave empty plastic bottles in the water. When expanding, the ice will not squeeze out the bottom of the barrel, but compress the air inside the bottle.
ThisWe tested the method only on steel barrels. I'm not sure if this will work on plastic ones. Moreover, plastic is of different quality. There is one that bursts in the cold from the slightest touchvenia.
Used a 5 liter bottle. As practice has shown, this is enough to protect a 200-liter barrel of water from defrosting. To prevent the bottle from floating up, they tied it to a wooden stick, which was rested against the bottom of the barrel.
To prevent this whole structure from floating, a self-tapping screw was screwed into the bar from above and rested against the protruding edge of the barrel.
The barrels were always placed on the sunny side. The warm spring sunbeams melted the ice rather quickly. When we arrived with the seedlings, the water supply was already ready.
We now have a normal water supply. The "ice storage" has become unclaimed. But we still use the principle itself.
We have never encountered such a problem, so granite vases were installed in the cemetery. Moreover, they are quite massive - it will not work to turn it over. Only later did they notice that many of these vases have cracks.
In winter, water gets inside and, when frozen, breaks the vase like a barrel. We were immediately advised the standard solution - to wrap the vase for the winter on top with plastic wrap.
I don’t know where this tradition came from. But in our country some believers "sow" - they sprinkle grain on the graves. Even if a couple of seeds fall on top of the film, the crows tear it apart in search of more food.
The most effective solution was to put an empty bottle in a vase for the winter. And so that it does not float up, we fill it with sand somewhere in the middle.
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