water line froze

Well two days without water now . Wife is putting the pressure on ,lol . Looks like time to dig up the line see whats going on . So much for Ice fishing today

when we've had a water line froze on the farm, sometimes it can be thawed out using a small diameter pipev and hot water, pump the hot water through tre small pipe which you push down the froze water pipe, works ok if the frozen part is close to the access point. If it's too far away i guess you'll have to dig. might want to insulate over the pipe when you fill the trench in, it does help.

Up here in Manitoba Canada, our pipes are 8feet down, and where our water pipe crosses the yard we put our pipe down 12feet, that should stop it freezing (traffic over the pipe forces the frost down further.

Godd luck!

At my place the pipe from the pump house to the house is down 8 feet, even under the drive and this is near central Minnesota.

Will

Kinda strange , had one day we had some brown water out the faucets, day later no water . Need to check other people on our street . See if they have any trouble . May be a problem in the main ? No water seepage anywhere up or down the street though .

(quoted from post at 07:36:48 01/23/11) Well two days without water now . Wife is putting the pressure on ,lol . Looks like time to dig up the line see whats going on . So much for Ice fishing today

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Not much worse than a frozen water line. Good luck getting it thawed out.

LOL, they say 6" down here! I'm a transplanted yankee.... the ones I've done are 24"!

I work for the water dept. here in southeast Iowa. Most likely your your line is frozen where it comes through the wall or up through the basement floor. Take the meter off and put a space heater by it. Just check it often so when it thaws out you dont have a flood! E-mail me if you need more tips. There is a few other ways.

When the pipes in Madison SD have froze they have had a guy with a portable welder hook a cable up on each side of the frozen area. It thaws them out don't know how long it take or what amps used.

Thanks for the tip. I dug outside wall ,opened up 2x2 or so hole . stuck a heater in it ,,,,thawed it out . Shower time,,was getting lil ripe around here , lol

The water line to my house is down at least 8 feet from the street to the house. This is in NE Maryland. Hal

southern Missouri here, lines are mostly 18", the first night we had single digit temps i went out at 9pm to fill the furnace and saw the lamp was on in the well house, (small hole in wall with a glass rod in it) but at 4am the next moring i got up to use the potty and NO water, i paid close attention to it , it didn't "glug" so i hoped it was just frozen and not busted, i went out to the well house and sho' nuf, the light picked that one night to quit,

a hair dryer and several choice words later we had water,

but last year when we had just taken possession of this house i didn't know the previous owner in his weeded out state had ripped all the insulation from the well house, i discovered that at the same time i discovered the new pond the busted line had left

There was a blurb in the Seattle paper a few years ago- couple of guys were using that method to thaw pipes. Went to collect after one job, and the homeownwe balked at the price. So the one guy yells to the other, "This guy don't wanna pay! Reverse the polarity!" Homeowner grabs for his wallet and says, "OK, never mind, I'll pay."

I used to thaw waterlines years ago with my Hobart willys powered welder..I set the amps to max , then fiddled with the fine tune till I saw a fine line of sparks on the armature commutator.. At Kentucky Fried it took about 2 hours to thaw their waterline..Other residential jobs took only minutes..

When I was a kid,(back in the 1950"s), my dadand I thawed out many a frozen water pipes on dairy farms. We used a portable generator welder. See Picture. We charged $15.00-$20.00 depending on the time spent there. Usually my dads settled for a six pack of Stroh"s. Took about 15 minutes +- to thaw out 100 ft of pipe.

Don't know if it will help but.. I thawed a plastic water line which froze underground with an air compressor and a length of air brake tubing..the small 1/4 inch stuff. Just put low pressure 10-20 lbs and keep feeding it in. takes a while but it works.

Brad

When we place water lines I alwas suggest two lines side by side. The cost isn't a whole lot more because the hole is already dug. We also place them inside a 4 inch solid drain tile, and seven foot down.

We (include in our service) draw a very detailed map of the lines with photos that I ask them to place with their deed and abstract...no where else, because that is what I have suggested since 1964, and I will know where I told them to put it.

So far (knock ON wood) it has been well recieved, Especialy when you look at the total cost, it just is a real cheap saftey step.

A welder does work fine, but the guy doing it probably does not have insurance, or if he does, his insurance company is sleeping. I know of at least six cases where the neighbors socket meter started smoking, a fuse box got toasted, electronic devices failed etc.

I got scared myself, and do not offer the service anymore, rather a phone number of a guy who does it. It has been outlawed in my town, although I have asked to see the ordinance in writting a couple times, and no one has showed it to me.

We get calls all the time to help thaw out new cattle waters, hog waters, and frozen water lines. The problems always seem to follow certian contractors, do it your selfers. I know of few cases where some one should not have seen the problem as it was installed.