We woke up this morning to discover that we had no running water in our kitchen sink or bathtub and only the cold water was running out of the bathroom sink faucet. It’s unbelievably cold outside and with no heat flowing through the main floor or basement, the pipes behind the bathtub froze.
We called Spencer bright and early at 7am asking what to do and he came by to check it out. The plumber isn’t available to come in until Wednesday (!) to hook up our radiators and that’s really the only solution to getting hot water back. I don’t know how we’re supposed to go until Wednesday evening without bathing the kids or having showers! In the meantime we’ve placed heaters to blow hot air onto the pipes- we now have the cold water back in the kitchen sink.
1 response so far ↓
1 Adam // Feb 24, 2008 at 1:44 am
A less messy but far more dangerous heat source for thawing frozen pipes is a propane torch equipped with a flame-spreader nozzle. With this heat source, you must be extremely careful to prevent torch flame from damaging or igniting wall behind pipe. A scrap of fireproof material between pipe and wall is a good precautionary measure, but the way you use the torch is the main element in safe pipe thawing. Keep flame moving back and forth. Never leave it in one spot very long. Be especially careful if you’re near any soldered pipe joints. Pass over them very quickly or else they may melt and cause leaks, and you’ll find that you have a much more serious plumbing problem on your hands than a frozen pipe. Caution: Never use torch or other direct high heat on plastic pipe.
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