It’s cold now! Be careful about the functionality of your wastewater system even in winter

Normally, warm water enters the wastewater system at regular intervals, and thus also in winter, warm water helps the wastewater system to stay unfrozen. The conditions become challenging when the wastewater system is not in use (e.g. in holiday homes or detached houses during the holiday season). Therefore, wastewater systems should always be designed and tested so that they function even in the most demanding conditions. This means well-designed structures and insulation.

Read how the Biopurifier performed in the winter test.

The structure of Vestell’s Biopurifier is designed so that the air trapped between the hollow-structured lid provides insulation and in addition, the process section is further separated from the rest of the tank by insulating it with a completely sealed insulating intermediate lid. These solutions keep the product in working order even in the harshest winter conditions.

We wanted to conduct a winter test in the most difficult conditions, so that we could demonstrate the functionality of the Biopurifier even in extreme conditions. We were looking for a location where the following would be true: the device would not be used during the test period, the air blower would be in winter storage, but the device would still have water inside.

Our customer Markku Holopainen uses a Vestell Biopurifier 3 for gray wastewater in his vacation home in Kylmäkoski, and Markku’s vacation home was a perfect fit for our test, as it was known that the apartment would not be used during the winter of 2018. In addition, the water in the Biopurifier had been left in for the winter and the air fan had been raised indoors to warm up.

In terms of winter use, this aforementioned situation is the most challenging for the wastewater system. We wanted to highlight facts about how the Biopurifier works in winter conditions.

For the winter test, we installed two separate sensors in the Biopurifier and recorded the readings of the outdoor temperature.

The first sensor (Sensor 1) is located under the plastic cover and measures the soil temperature.

The second sensor (Sensor 2) is located in the surface water inside the Biopurifier, below the insulation intermediate cover and frost insulation. This measures the surface water temperature and indicates whether the water remains thawed under all conditions.

 

Figure 1: Temperatures as a graph (13.12.2017-25.3.2018)

The test revealed that outdoor temperatures varied between +3.0 °C and -19.0 °C (Outdoor temperature – gray line), averaging -8.8 °C. The average temperature inside the ground drops to about -1.6 °C below freezing (sensor 1 – blue line), and at its coldest, the temperature rose to as low as -7.4 °C. The surface water inside the Biopurifier remains above freezing at all times, averaging about +1.6 °C (sensor 2 – orange line).

Winter test result: Thanks to the bio-purifier’s insulating structure, the device remains fully operational during winter use, even in the most challenging conditions.

Note: During the installation phase, frost insulation (e.g. Finnfoam) is installed on the Bio Purifier against the installation level reserved for it, creating a seamless insulation structure. You don’t need to do anything else and you will get tested, worry-free winter use – even in extreme conditions.

There are thousands of biopurifier products in different parts of Finland. Experience in cold and demanding climates can be found in Lapland, the northernmost arm of Finland. The biopurifier remains in working order in winter use even in the most challenging conditions.