What are these pipes for?

[Yuri Olhovsky]

Did an inspection on 40 years old house today and for the first time I see something like this: two taps on exterior between the pipe that goes out of the wall and returns to the same wall. Since the basement is finished I was unable to determine the purpose of this arrangement. Did anybody see this before? Any thoughts?

[Brian E. Kelly]

Here Yuri it would be common for a soft water loop. But I can not imagine why they would be outside in your neck of the woods?

Could it be some sort of drain piping? Hydronic heating or something?

[Yuri Olhovsky]

Brian, they do have a hydronic heating in this house. My first thought was about this too. However, what bothers me is the fact that this arrangement is on exterior wall outside of the residence, thus making pipes susceptible to freezing in Canadian winter.

[Brian E. Kelly]

My thoughts too Yuri, someone here will know what they are, be patient.
I am also curious.

[Yuri Olhovsky]

I'm just thinking loud (or typing, whatever...) that if there are two more shut-off valves inside, then maybe you close these two valves and drain excess water through the other two? Again, finished basement prevented me from confirming this.

[lcapaul]

That looks like black pipe not galvanized, could they be shut off valves for gas fireplaces, possibly an upgrade from wood burning fireplaces.

[Yuri Olhovsky]

No, they are copper water pipes.

[phinsperger]

Hi Yuri, It looks like someone wanted to plumb around the floor header instead of drilling through the floor.

You mentioned that they had hyrdonic heating. If its in-floor hydronic, perphaps they didn't know how to locate where in the floor the pipes were and were "playing it safe" not to puncture existing hydronic pipes.

It's hard to tell from the angle of the picture but they look like they maybe frost proof valves. If that's the case the lower (post valve) pipe would still have to be drained for winter.

In any case these pipes would only be for seasonal use.

[sparksnmore]

Can't really tell what's behind the handels from that angle but it looks like boiler drain valves screwed into drop ear ells and used for hot and cold hose bibs.

[Yuri Olhovsky]

Paul, they have baseboard radiators there, like on attached picture, not in-floor radiant heating. This is a foreclosure sale, so the house is a complete mess. Since this is not an ordinary arrangement, I just wanted to understand for myself what they tried to do here. Thanks to everybody for the thoughts.

[relliott]

Yuri if this was for baseboard heating,you should have been able to see the upper portion of the pipes lined up with the baseboards on the first floor.

[phinsperger]

It would not be smart for these pipes to be part of the hydronic heating system as they run outside of the insulated envelope.

They still look to me like they wanted to go around the floor header (rim joist ) as opposed to going though the floorfor some reason.

[Marc D. Shunk]

Could they simply be hot and cold spigots for washing the car/dog with warm water?

[Yuri Olhovsky]

Originally Posted by Marc D. Shunk

Could they simply be hot and cold spigots for washing the car/dog with warm water?

Where? Inside the house? Garage is on the other side of the building. Paul, you may be right about bypassing the floor header, but what a stupid idea to put water pipes outside of the building envelope for this purpose.