Do Pop Up Drains Freeze? (Explained)

Pop up drains can freeze because of how the freezing originates from the downspout. This is why it becomes important for you to install a heating system and for you to clean your pop up drain regularly so that you will be able to minimize the chances of ice building up in the drain.

Do pop up emitters hold water?

There are plenty of different accessories that you can add to your home to make it better overall in terms of how it functions. One such accessory is a pop up drain or emitter, which is supposed to be relocated in your yard.

So, what a pop up emitter does is that it is connected to the drainage downspout so that it will relocate water that comes from your roof. The pop up emitter becomes useful in this case because of how it actually holds water and prevents the water from building up in your yard to flood it. In short, it basically holds the relocated water all the way from your roof.

The reason why pop up emitters are named as such is due to the fact that they will only pop up and stay open when water is running through them.

This system allows the pop up emitters to drain and hold water without also taking the debris coming from the downspout. As a result, your pop up drain will almost always only hold water.

What happens here is that the drain will pop up once it interacts with incoming water. It responds by popping up and will immediately allow the water to pass through them instead of flooding the yard. The pop up emitters also have drainage under them so that they won’t end up getting flooded themselves.

After the pop up emitter drains the water coming from your downspout, what happens is that it will relocate the water to a nearby gutter so that the water it holds won’t end up building up.

As such, it is important for you to make sure that you actually ask permission from your homeowner’s association before installing a pop up emitter due to the very fact that it uses the neighborhood’s gutter to relocate the water that it drained.

Do pop up drains freeze?

Now that you know that pop up drains actually hold the water that they relocate from the downspout of your home, you might be wondering if they will actually freeze whenever the season gets a bit too cold.

After all, you have probably heard from your friends or neighbors that it can be a nightmare whenever the pop up emitter freezes.

Yes, there is a chance that your pop up emitter will freeze especially when the season gets a bit too cold to the point that water quickly freezes when it makes contact with the air. To that end, it becomes important for you to understand why the water in your pop up emitter freezes so that you can solve the problem right at the root of it all.

First off, freezing actually starts in your downspout because that is where your pop up drain gets the water that it holds. When the roof has collected enough water, the downspout will drain it all the way down to where your pop up drain will collect the water.

But as the water is getting drained by the downspout, freezing already starts because of how it makes contact with the cold temperature from the pipes.

While the water might not end up freezing and solidifying while it is still getting drained by the downspout, it will most probably finish turning into ice in the pop up drain as the freezing process had already started when the water was still getting drained by the downspout.

This is why there are times when the water in your pop up emitter ends up freezing as the water is already cold and about to freeze the moment the emitter drains it from the downspout.

So, for you to prevent your pop up emitters from freezing, the first thing you need to do is to cut the freezing right at the source, which is the downspout.

The best way to prevent freezing is to make sure that you install a heating system at the gutter of your downspout so that the water that passes through the pipes won’t end up freezing the moment they enter the pop up emitter.

You can use heating tapes that can help insulate the pipes to prevent the water from freezing.

What happens here is that, due to the fact that the water that passes through the downspout is yet to undergo the process of freezing due to the heating system, the chances of them freezing in your pop up emitter will be minimal at best.

In short, you do not install the heating system on the pop up drain but on the gutters of your downspout.

Another thing that you need to make sure of is that your pop up emitter is clean and free from water. Always make sure that the pop up drain is not holding any water and that it has drained all of the water it relocated from the downspout. After all, the longer your pop up drain will hold water, the higher the chances that the water it holds will end up freezing.

The best way for you to clean the pop up drain is to use a garden hose to flush anything that may still be in the pipes. Using a hose will allow the pressure to push excess moisture and water out of the pipes.

As long as there is no excess moisture or water in the pop up drain, the chances of the pipes freezing will be minimal.

This is why regular maintenance and cleaning are important.

Keep in mind that these tips will not melt the ice in your pop up emitter but will only minimize the chances of the drain from freezing. So, if your pop up drain has already started freezing, you might need professional help to remove or melt the ice.

Of course, you could also wait for the season to get warmer as the water in your pop up drain will eventually melt once spring starts to warm things up a bit. But, then again, you will understand that this is a risky move as we go along with this discussion.

Will water freeze in the pipes causing them to crack?

So, the reason why you should make sure that your pop up drain doesn’t hold ice too long when it does end up freezing is that there is a chance that your pipes will end up cracking due to the ice.

That’s because the ice in your pipes may end up becoming a bit too heavy for the pop up drain to hold and may end up damaging the pipes as a result of the weight that they are carrying.

This is why it is important for you to make sure that you cut the freezing right at the source so that your pop up drains won’t end up freezing during the winter.

Conclusion

As useful as pop up drains may be, they do tend to have issues that can be problematic. Of course, as you already know based on our discussion, freezing is one of those issues. This usually happens when the weather gets a bit too cold such as when it’s the winter season.

However, despite the fact that these pipes can actually freeze, being vigilant enough to install a heating system and doing proper maintenance and cleaning can actually solve all of your problems before they even happen.

That’s why it is important for you to make sure that you do your part in preventing your pop up drains from freezing.