All furnaces have a drain pipe, through which condensation that collects leaves the heater. Contractors often run these pipes outdoors through walls, which leaves them susceptible to freezing during winter in the Northern United States. While exterior drain pipes can be insulated with heat tape or foam, running the pipe through a basement floor, instead of the wall, will prevent it from freezing up. If you live in a northern state and are having your furnace replaced, ask your furnace replacement technician for information about rerouting the heater's drain pipe through your basement floor to prevent it from freezing up.
High-Efficiency Furnaces Generate More Condensation
If you already have issues with your furnace's drain pipe freezing, the problem will probably be worse with your new furnace. For, your new furnace will likely be more efficient than your previous one, and more efficient furnaces generate more condensation. A high-efficiency furnace, according to HomeTips.com can produce 5 or 6 gallons of water each day. If ice starts to build up in the drain of one of these furnaces, it may quickly block the line.
Routing Drain Pipes Through Exterior Walls
In the Northern U.S., most furnaces are in homes' basements or on the ground floor. In some cases, the drain pipe is connected to the rest of the house's plumbing. The drain line is run through an exterior wall most of the time, though, because there aren't any other pipes close to the furnace. If these pipes aren't properly insulated, ice can build up in them and block water from draining.
Running Drain Lines Directly Through Basement Floors
Often, a drain line can be run down through the basement floor. This has several advantages over directing the pipe through a wall. A pipe that goes directly down through the basement floor is:
- vertical, instead of horizontal, so water drains faster
- easier to conceal than one that goes through a wall
- insulated by the basement and ground, which does not get as cold as the air
Although the line is vertical, it should still have a trap and condensation pump. Even though it's unlikely that anything will fall into the pipe, a trap ensures that you'll be able to retrieve an object if it does. A condensation pump, which is a standard piece of equipment on furnaces, keeps too much water from pooling in the trap. On most furnaces, the condensate pump is adjacent to the drain pipe's trap.
It's easy to run a pipe down through a basement floor, even well after a home's built. Concrete Construction places the standard thickness for a residential concrete floor at 4 inches. A power drill can go through 4-inch concrete in minutes.
You'll have to dig another inch or two once you drill through the concrete floor so that the pipe extends past the concrete. Getting the dirt out through the drilled hole may be challenging, but, with a little patience, it's doable. If the dirt below the floor is hard to break up, you may try using a screwdriver, or even the drill, to dislodge it.
If your current furnace's drain line has frozen in the past, have it rerouted when you replace your furnace -- especially if you upgrade to a high-efficiency model that will produce more condensate. It's easy to reroute a pipe through your basement floor instead of an exterior wall, and your furnace installation technician should be able to do it for you. They may assume you want the drain pipe of your new pipe to go where your old one was, though, so it's important to bring up this point before they get to work.
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