Condensed water from boiler frozen.

[Boto]

I recently had a new condensing boiler fitted and as the water needed to go into a drain I had to have quite a long pipe on the outside. Due to the extremely cold weather this pipe and the water in it has frozen. Is there any kind of insulation I can buy from say B&Q to put round this pipe? Many thanks.

[The Builder]

Big problem at the moment Boto ............ all you can do is lag the pipe. I guess it's a 15mm pipe. Get some conventional pipe lagging with thick walls............ the thicker the better.

There's been some confusion on here lately over insulating pipework, or anything else which is located OUTSIDE the house.
It's not always necessary to have a heat source to "keep it warm". The condensate already contains heat ......... everything does.......... it just needs insulation to reduce heat transfer to the cold ambient air.

[agardner09]

I'm genuinely surprised you have suffered from this Boto. We also had a new condensing boiler fitted literally 3 days before this cold weather. Having heard about the problem on the radio I raised it with the engineer and he told me that the industry this year had advised all engineers installing condensing boilers to lag the whole of any external drain pipe. Needless to say we have not experienced any problem. It calls into question the competence of your installer. I should get back to them straight away.

[johnk]

I have heard you can disconnect the outside pipe and ues an inside one draining into a bucket until the thaw arroives

[chelle7272]

We have ahd the same problem twice this last week. Not able to get as far as a B&Q or similar yet to get any lagging. 10 minutes with the hairdryer is sorting it out at the moment!

[tufty7]

I had exactly the same problem a couple of weeks ago , My system was put in about a year ago and we did not have any issues last year but the freezing temperatures this year stopped the boiler dead as it reached -17 it simply could not get rid of the condensor chamber fluid, I decided to upgrade the condensor pipe to 32mm , give it a steeper decline going into the drain and also I put in a extension pipe with an end cap which will allow me to use it as a funnel should i ever get it freeze up again , I will simply take off the end cap and use the extra section as a funnel to pour hot water down , Fingers crossed however it has worked fine since I upgraded the pipe , With hindsight the original plumber should have run the longer part internally before exiting the building into the drain but I think he took the lazy quicker way to be honest .

[Bromsgrove]

Two years ago we had this problem. The size of the pipe was increased and lagging used. This year we have a frozen pipe again. My husband has tried to increase the thickness of the lagging but all D.I.Y. shops have sold out, Clearly this is a problem with this type of boiler, I have read of many needing answers to this situation, perhaps the plumbing industry could alert people to a potential problem when this sort of boiler is installed