Well Hydrant????

I have a well hydrant in my barn with a short hose on it(wash machine).Last night the end of the hose was left in a bucket with a small amount of water in it.Well the whole thing is froze up now.I beleive the line cant drain back into the ground when the end of the hose cant suck air.Not that I havent EXPLAINED THAT TO EVERY AROUND HERE!!!!.Anyways do I have any recourse or do I just have to wait till spring.I tried heating the whole above ground line with a torch with no luck.The shaft wont even budge to open the valve.Should I be careful on how much pressure I exert to open the valve.Could something break down there.Im going to put a heat tape on it and just let it set for now.Any suggestions would help

Thanks
Stan

Other than digging it out some, and heating it from the outside, no. You might make an insulated box around it (4'X4" and with a lid, Then putting a 200 watt bulb in the box with it.
Frostex heat tape is also a fine product. with foam pipe insulation on that it might be freed up. Do not force it, or you will dig deep. JimN

I would think that you are doing the right thing. It mostly depends on just how cold it is there and how many inches or feet of "frost" are under your barn. There would be no reason to put much pressure on the control as just a small amount of ice would lock it. Two thoughts though. You might try putting an electric space heater under a steel barrel over the hydrant and let it run for a day or two. If the lines are metal, a local welding shop operator used to hook welder cables up somehow to thaw pipes.
Hope this helps.

The heat tape might be your only option. Don't pull too hard. First thing that's gonna happen is that the set screw at the top will slip on the rod. I had one rot out at the bottom a few years ago where the rod screws into the plunger. I don't know how your water is,but we have a lot of magnesium in ours and it ate right through it,so yours might already be weak. It's POSSIBLE that the reason you can't pull it up is just because the rod is frozen to the seal at the top. These Simmons hydrants that I have just have a stack of 3 o-rings under that nut. If you have a little propane torch,or even a hair dryer,you might try heating that. So,yea,just wrap it up good with heat tape and insulation and hope for the best.

Yeah the set screw already slipped.It was about 15 here last night.My ground doesnt freeze real bad around here though as the water shelf isnt very deep.Well is only 12-14 ft deep with an endless supply of water. As far as heating the pipe from the ground,It comes up from the ground right along the wall.Should I assume my heat tape should be as close to the ground as possible,as I have already heated the above ground pipe.
Thanks
Stan

a foot or two of frost i have had some luck on these by digging a hole next to hydrant big enough to hold a pint or so of water filling with boiling water and working a 3/8 rod down beside pipe. as you work the rod up and down it will work hot water against pipe and thaw it. keep adding hot water to it as needed. good luck

Take the top off of the pipe leave the rod for the valve in place pull a hose from some other sorce of water cut metal fitting off of hose slid on the rod turn on the water and work hose down the rod untill it slides freely put it back together this works i have done this in Jan

BINGO!

BT,DT, and DAMN, it was CCCOLD!

Over night with a heat tape should do it, the barrel with the heater probably will also, just not as safe IMHO

Take a 3/8 steel rod and tap a hole next to out side of pipe. Fill that thimble size hole with boiling water and tap the rod deeper. keep repeating process until hydrant is thawed. This works very fast with minimal mess. Takes longer to heat the water to boiling then it does to thaw pipe.

I"ve thawed them out by pouring hot water on the out of the ground part until its thawed. Then drive a rod down into the ground next to the hydrant. Pull it back out and spray hot water down the hole with a hand sprayer. Lee

I had the same thing happen to me back in January on one of those -12 days. I tried a small hand torch then the cutting torch. Nothing worked. So I took an empty 55 gallon barrel and put a milk house heater set at 60 under the barrel over night. Was completely operational the next morning and I was dealing with a lot colder temps than you are seeing.

I always put a heat tape on frost proof hydrants when they are installed.My barn water is fed from a plain pipe.I put 2 heat tapes on it one as a spare.Tape co says dont put foam insulation over heat tape.My heat tape has been working for 43 years.I drain the pipe when power goes out.you have to open the faucet so the line can drain back to the house cellar.

Sure don't want to argue with you, but if that hose is in the water it should make no differance at all...unless there is a float or valve on the end of it. That hydrant should suck the chrome off a ball hitch sucking backwards, or the water in the hose should grab enough air from under the ground to drain it into the bucket.

This will always work if the hydrant is installed correctly -----and there is good drainage under the hydrant. Every fire hydrant works on the same principal---nothing in the hydrant to freeze, and you sure do not need a heat tape of any shape size or form. Again the hydrant should be dry once the hydrant IS SHUT ---COMPLETLY OFF. This would not be true if you used a soft hose that will colapse, and not drain decent.

And we must realize that if anything is not perfect this system will fail. Many hydrants are not installed with a good drainage material under them. One other problem is a lack of ocasional use, and rust plugs the drain back hole at the bottom. Sometimes they pull hard and get out of adjustment.

Often folks place the hydrant inside another pipe, and that allows cold air to travel downward faster than through the earth.

We have a rule in my comunity (I'm being a smart A$$ now) to never fix anything dealing with water problems unless the ground is froze hard, and it is very cold outside. I assume the reason is because no one wants to break a sweat when repairing water problems. And they never freeze in the warm summer months, so why fix them.

A few years ago on Christmas eve at 7PM I was asked to simply turn the water hydrant apart under the frozen ground and simply push the new hydrant into the hole in the frozen ground to replace the old hydrant. And to add to the flavor, it was in between some buildings that a backhoe could never ever get to.

I had to do some fast talking, because the farmer just knew it could be done. I told him I had problems starting iron pipe threads inside a heated work shop, let alone six foot under the frozen ground where I couldn't even see the other end of the pipe let alone the threads, besides no way to hold it with a pipe wrench six ft down. In the conversation he told me he was having problems the last winter with it, just never got around to getting it fixed. When I asked if there was a shut off, he said just one, but it shuts off the house and every water line on the farm, and we are having everyone here for x-mas tomorrow. It was about fifteen to twenty below, and lots of wind for santa that evening, and would have taken me a hour to dig the snow out to get to the jackhammer.

So while everyone else was dreaming of santa, I was a thinking of beating a farmer with a scoop shovel on x-mas eve.