Good afternoon, my reader. A rare dacha economy does without such an important device as a barrel in which rainwater is collected. However, many novice summer residents faced a problem when the barrel, which they left in the country in winter, fell into disrepair by the spring. It's all about non-compliance with certain rules for storing such containers. If you do not pour water out of them and turn them over, they can easily deform over the winter from the ice expanding them and become unusable.
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According to the laws of physics, water, having turned into ice, increases in volume by 8%. And this means, for example, that a 200-liter iron barrel filled with water, after the latter has completely frozen, will already contain 216 liters of ice mass. So that the barrel is not damaged by the increased pressure, these additional liters must be somehow compensated. Moreover, a simple pumping out of 16 liters of water from the container will do nothing, since the expansion of the volume of the liquid during the freezing process will go in all directions, increasing the load on the walls and bottom.
But you can use a simple and proven method. If for some reason it is not possible to drain the barrel in the fall, then simply immerse small plastic containers in water: cans or water bottles.
This method is based on elementary physics. The fact is that with an increase in the volume of water during the freezing process, pressure will be exerted not so much on the walls and bottom of the barrel, but on these plastic containers, previously placed in it. Simply put, as a result, the ice will crush the cans and bottles, and the barrel will remain intact.
The sequence of actions for the manufacture of such a "device" is as follows:
- A plastic canister or water bottle is taken. The softer its body, the better.
- Its neck is screwed on with a lid, but not tightly (when pressing on the container, air should come out from under the lid).
- The body is firmly wrapped with a rope, the other end of which is tied to a brick (it will act as an anchor). It should be tied on all four sides so that it does not break off.
- Then, holding the rope, it is carefully lowered to the bottom. The length of the rope must be calculated according to the height of the barrel in such a way that the canister, partially pulled by the brick, as a result would become a kind of float, submerged 3/4 into the water.
There may be more than one float. For example, for a two-hundred-liter barrel, a compensation of 16 liters is required. In part, it will be carried out due to the fact that part of the freezing water is freely squeezed upward. If a five-liter canister was used as a float, then it will compensate for another 5 liters of volume. But this may not be enough, so it is better to have two such floats.
To prevent deformation of the bottom of the barrel, a couple of two-liter plastic bottles filled with sand can be lowered onto it on ropes. The ice will not be able to completely crush them, however, part of the pressure in this way can still be switched to them, which means that the pressure on the bottom will be reduced.
Do you know how to preserve a summer cottage barrel in winter without pouring water out of it?
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