| Author | Message | ||
     86129squids |
Dammit I thought we had set a drip on all the indoor faucets- wind chill is below zero for the rest of the night. Frickin house water pipes already froze up- othen than leaving faucets open and praying, what can one do to avoid frozedn pipe damage? | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Open the cabinets under the sinks. | ||
| Ulyranger |
For prolonged time periods of absense/non-use, draining is the only real option. If you only have freeze up in certain locations, like near outer walls, in crawl spaces, etc. heat tape works. You either have to drain or keep you pipes warm. | ||
| Skinstains |
+1 on keeping pipes warm. You may want to re-route pipes from exterior walls to interior walls. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
My kitchen sink service used to freeze up. I put a layer of styrofoam insulation between the pipes and the wall and leave the cabinet door open when it gets really nasty..... hasn't froze since. | ||
| Jramsey |
Provided your talking about metallic pipes borrow a engine drive welder and thaw them out. Shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to an hour. | ||
| Andyss1w |
don't let the pipes stay frozen too long! copper takes about 24 hours to burst. galvanized steel takes about 48 hours. i am a plumber apprentice. we use a pipe thawing machine. (its pretty much a welder)you can rent these at a tool rental company. should thaw out in less than 5 minutes. hook up to a pipe that you know is not frozen and then hook up to the pipe that is. your pipes need to match. (frozen cold with a thawed cold) this will only work if your pipes are all metal. if you have repairs that contain rubber or plastic machine wont work. another tip, if your cables wont reach to another water supply, use jumper cables to get extra length. good luck. take all the good advise to prevent, and keep me informed. | ||
| Tom_b |
is your house a slab design, crawl space, basement or manufactured housing(mobile home). this all makes a difference how to prevent the problem in the first place. is it the whole house, or just certain area. have dealt with this problem a LOT ver the years. the above suggestions are good as far as thawing. but until you resolve why they froze, they will freeze right back again.. good luck | ||
| Brumbear |
if you have a welder you can try to heat them up to get the water moving again bye putting 1 cable near the basement or street connection if you have one and 1 up near the facets open the valve start or turn on welder on low setting for a few seconds at a time it will heat up the pipes and thaw them plays hell on the cables and welder though careful to make sure you are connected well before you turn it on as an arch will eat right though the copper pipes get some heat tape in the problem areas at minimum otherwise +1 to all above comments | ||
| Ducbsa |
My first job was Plumbers Helper. (Great job for a 17 year old, BTW. It has helped me in my job as a mechanical engineer and $ave money on home repairs.) One of the plumbers had a story about thawing the pipes for a woman who had taken a long time to pay her last bill. She was stonewalling paying him when he finished. So, he threatened to hook the machine in reverse and freeze them back up; she paid right then and there. | ||
| Rotzaruck |
If you have a crawl space, find where the line enters the foundation. See if there are any vents or other sources of cold air near it. If a basement, see if it comes up by a garage door, window, gap in the wall, or such things. If it was as windy over there as it was here, it really makes a difference in cold air intrusion. Close up any openings and you may lose enough heat into the area to warm it up. If it's plastic, gentle heat with a blow dryer or even a light bulb will eventually do it. Don't go off with water frozen. It may thaw and be burst and do serious damage. Turn it off at the meter and while you are there, make sure the lid is on good. Rotzaruck! | ||
| 86129squids |
Thanks folks- as it turned out, they freed up after the DANG FRICKIN BITTER COLD 40+MPH WIND let up on us. Radiant heat from the house saved me, I guess. Woke up in the middle of the night and heard the faucet running again. I had left the kitchen and bathroom taps dripping slowly- guess even that wasn't enough given the subzero wind chill we had last night. Thanks for all the advice- gonna spend a day soon scouting for insulation problems. COME ON SPRING!!! | ||
| Swampy |
I looked at an old 1880s house to buy, 3 story brick, a couple of bathrooms, bathroom on second floor froze and broke the toilet tank, water ran downstairs and soaked into the hardwood floors. The ceiling(lathe and plaster) was sagging, there was black mold in the first floor walls, and all the hardwood flooring was buckled to the point that just in the 20X20 great room there were 3 runs that looked like someone had popped the flooring up. The flooring was popped up in multiple areas through out the house. The crazy thing about it was a repo that some speculator bought and was now trying to get his money out of it. Price? $89,000. That bank bailout a couple of months ago was a bad thing. Water+old dried wood=bad | ||
| Hughlysses |
don't let the pipes stay frozen too long! copper takes about 24 hours to burst. galvanized steel takes about 48 hours. Andy- Thanks for posting that; that's good info to remember. I've been kind of cutting it close with my parent's house. Both my parents are deceased and the house is about 70 miles from me and presently unoccupied. I've kept the thermostat on 50 degrees F trying to minimize heating costs while keeping the pipes from freezing. We've had some sub-20 degree F days here in SC and all has been OK so far. Oh yea, the house is heated with propane. A big gas company came through about 6 months ago promising natural gas would be available in a month or so so I signed up. The gas company is FINALLY supposed to show up tomorrow to connect to this house. I've been trying to avoid re-filling the propane tank and it's down to ~25% now (start of the "red" zone on the gauge). I'm hoping the propane will last out the week. Based on what you're saying, I should be OK even if the gas runs out (temps go above freezing during the day). All dad's pipes were galvanized or copper. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. | ||
| 86129squids |
FYI- I did have a pipe bust a couple of weeks ago- it was easy to get to, and after trying to get some schlub out to fix it on Sunday and failing, I went to Homie Depot and found the fix. For about $12, I bought a Rectorseal kit which used a special epoxy to plug the hole, then a special fiberglass tape impregnated with a water activated resin that you wrap around the plugged hole to finish. Says it's good on any rigid pipe, any HVAC/plumbing, up to 450psi. Other than blowing my chance to use the epoxy properly (QUICKLY after activating that stuff- instructions didn't mention it sets QUICK!) I got it done the next day. I had to go buy a tube of the epoxy to try again the 2nd time, but it was pretty simple otherwise. I was impressed and quite happy with the results. Much cheaper than calling someone in! A taste of spring is coming my way this weekend- gotta go see how the old Dragon is doing. I'll be riding Friday and Sunday, and Monday. YEEHAAAAA  | ||
| Rotzaruck |
Just wondering. Is there some reason not to winterize the plumbing in your folks house? It's not complicated, and less to worry about. If people are there part of the time though it's too much trouble to do on a regular basis. We do it every winter for realtors and migraters. |
