Safely heating a very small well house

[JEG in Raleigh]

I'm in Raleigh, North Carolina and have a well for my house's water supply. For some reason, pitless adapters, which allow all piping to be run from the well to the house below frost line, are not allowed so I have piping emerging from the top of my well seal, which is exposed to the ambient temperature. Throughout the winter, the overnight tempertures might kiss the high 20's and at those temperatures, I don't have a problem with the well. But we do have several weeks where temps might drop into the mid-teens and not warm up above freezing for a day or two, and with those temperatures, the epxosed pipes at my well head will freeze and on a couple of occastions when I was slack, have burst. So when the temps are going to drop, I have leave hydrants on the top of the well running, which is not a permanent solution.

I'm getting ready to build a very small (3'x3'x3') insulated well house that I can put over the well head, but remove easily if the well needs sevicing. I want to devise a simple and SAFE way of heating the well house when temperatures drop to freezing. I have an outbuilding with power and GFCI's near the well, and I can run an extension cord from that building to the well. I do not want to use heat tape, because if the thermostat malfunctions, I can end up with frozen pipes or melted pipes. I also do not want to use a Themo Cube themorstatic plug because I have tried that in the past and it too was not reliable. I want to construct the well house so there is male inlet receptacle on one wall of the well house that I can connect to an extension cord running from the out building. I'm thinking a heat lamp would be the best and safest way to heat the interior and I can position the socket for a heat lamp to place the lamp bulb near the pipes. But I would like the heat lamp to be controlled by an adjustable thermostat so I can trigger the light to come on when the interior temperature of the well house drops to 32 degrees....not when the temperature is in the 40's, like the thermostats on heat tape or the Thermo Cube do.

The well house will be completely water-tight. I do want to be able to plug this system in for a couple of months and have it do its thing without having to screw around with it every day. Can someone recommend the appropriate thermostatic control I could use for this scenario? Or, if what I'm proposing to do is a bad solution, could someone recommend a better, SAFE way of doing this?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Megawatt]

I'm in Raleigh, North Carolina and have a well for my house's water supply. For some reason, pitless adapters, which allow all piping to be run from the well to the house below frost line, are not allowed so I have piping emerging from the top of my well seal, which is exposed to the ambient temperature. Throughout the winter, the overnight tempertures might kiss the high 20's and at those temperatures, I don't have a problem with the well. But we do have several weeks where temps might drop into the mid-teens and not warm up above freezing for a day or two, and with those temperatures, the epxosed pipes at my well head will freeze and on a couple of occastions when I was slack, have burst. So when the temps are going to drop, I have leave hydrants on the top of the well running, which is not a permanent solution.

I'm getting ready to build a very small (3'x3'x3') insulated well house that I can put over the well head, but remove easily if the well needs sevicing. I want to devise a simple and SAFE way of heating the well house when temperatures drop to freezing. I have an outbuilding with power and GFCI's near the well, and I can run an extension cord from that building to the well. I do not want to use heat tape, because if the thermostat malfunctions, I can end up with frozen pipes or melted pipes. I also do not want to use a Themo Cube themorstatic plug because I have tried that in the past and it too was not reliable. I want to construct the well house so there is male inlet receptacle on one wall of the well house that I can connect to an extension cord running from the out building. I'm thinking a heat lamp would be the best and safest way to heat the interior and I can position the socket for a heat lamp to place the lamp bulb near the pipes. But I would like the heat lamp to be controlled by an adjustable thermostat so I can trigger the light to come on when the interior temperature of the well house drops to 32 degrees....not when the temperature is in the 40's, like the thermostats on heat tape or the Thermo Cube do.

The well house will be completely water-tight. I do want to be able to plug this system in for a couple of months and have it do its thing without having to screw around with it every day. Can someone recommend the appropriate thermostatic control I could use for this scenario? Or, if what I'm proposing to do is a bad solution, could someone recommend a better, SAFE way of doing this?

Thanks for any advice.

To be honest I am in NC and I’ve always used old blankets to cover all my well and never had a problem. Much simpler and has worked every winter since 1998. To me it’s to much like work to install heat tape or thermostats to just keep it from freezing. I also have an insulated cover on it also. Good luck