Top Five Ways To UnFreeze Your Plumbing Pipes
By If your plumbing has been properly installed and taken care of your plumbing should ever freeze, but if the weather gets really cold your pipes could wind up freezing. This guide will give you the top five ways to unfreeze your pipes.
There is a few things that you will want to do before unfreezing any pipe. The first thing to determine is if the pipe you are about to unfreeze has any pressure it it. This is common if the frozen pipe is a water line. If the pipe that is frozen is a drain line it won’t be full of pressure normally because drain lines are not meant to hold pressure. If you determine that the pipe that is frozen is a water line or another type of line that has pressure it in you will want to shut of the source. For example if the water main or another domestic water line is frozen in your home you will first want to shut the water off before unfreezing the line. The reason you will want to shut a pressured line off before you unfreeze is because if the pipe has cracked or split the liquid in the pipe will spray out everywhere when you thaw the pipe.
Unfreezing the frozen pipe ca be simple once you locate the section that is frozen, so if you have located the section that is frozen continue to the steps below so you can see the best and top five ways to unfreeze your pipes.
How To Unfreeze Your Pipes With A Piping Hot Machine.
You can use something called a “piping hot” machine to unfreeze your pipes. This machine works by using to spring loaded clamps that attach to the section of the pipe. Once you connect the spring loaded clamps to the pipe you turn on the machine and the machine heats the section of pipe between the clamps. This machine can be rented from a local plumbing supply house or off course you could also buy it new .
How To Unfreeze Your Pipes With A Heat Gun
If you have a heat gun you can use that to heat the frozen pipes as well. Just take the heat gun and point it on the frozen area of the pipe and move it back and forth spreading the heat between the two frozen points.
How To Unfreeze Your Pipes With A Plumbers Torch (Only copper pipe with water)
If you have a hand held plumbers torch or even a b tank you can use the torch to unfreeze copper or a metal based pipe that has water in it only . You do NOT want to use a torch to unfreeze anything that may be flammable. So make sure to only use a torch on lines that contain water. Also be careful because using a torch will heat the pipe fast and if you heat the pipe to much you can not only unfreeze the pipe but melt the solder out of the copper fitting if you are not careful.
How To Unfreeze Your Pipes With Electric Pipe Heat Tape
Electric Plumbing heat tape is not only a great way to prevent your pipes from freezing but also a slow but effective way to defrost or unfreeze the frozen pipe. You simply just have to wrap the pipe with the heat tape and then plug the end of it into a 110 outlet. Heat tape can also be directly wired in by an electrician if it is needed in any areas that pipe insulation will not work.
How To Unfreeze Your Pipes With A Portable Electric Heater
You can use a portable space heater to also unfreeze your pipes if they are in an area that is big enough to get the space heater into. The other down side to using a portable heater is that most of them have only around 1500 watts of power and that is not that much BUT it will work to unfreeze your pipes. This method will also take much longer then then other methods of unfreezing a pipe like we mentioned above.
Proper preventive maintenance can prevent the freezing of any type of plumbing pipe anywhere in the world.It’s actually really cost effective and could cost as little as $100 dollars to protect your plumbing. Using things like pipe insulation, electric pipe heat tape, electric space heaters and plumbing water lines in inside walls only helps to prevent your pipes from freezing. If you have to call a professional licensed plumber to unfreeze your pipes it could cost you hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars depending on what has froze and the damage that needs to be repaired after everything is thawed.
Like some of the above posts, I live in central Oklahoma, so the weather is supposed to warm back up tomorrow and Monday, however my hot water pipe froze last night. Our house is on a raised foundation, with most of the plumbing underneath. We have no outdoor outlets, so how do you recommend that we unfreeze our pipes. I have 2 young children ( 5 and 18 mos), and my husband is at work today, so I am unable to get into the crawl space to find which section is frozen. Thanks for your help!
Hi Candace,
Get the heat turned up in the house and somehow get heat into that crawl space.
You may also try a plumber since you and your husband cannot deal with this problem now.
If your pipes are metal the plumber may use an Electric pipe thawing machine to thaw the pipes.
Time is of the essence if you have metal or CPVC pipes which can burst from freezing.
Help!!!! I have no running water. I don’t even know where the pipes are frozen. I don’t have a basement, I live in Texas. I opened the doors under my sinks, opened the attic (very cold up there) and turned up the furnace. I turned on my faucets also. You talked about turning the main water off but do you mean the one outside or should there be one inside as well? If I have a main one in the house NO clue where it’s at. I do know where the one is outside. How do I unthaw my pipes and should I turn the water off outside by the street?
Hi Betty,
It sounds like the water pipe is frozen either from the street to your home or, inside the house where it comes in before reaching any fixtures. Opening the attic only would apply if the water pipes run in the attic. I would guess that yours are probably in the slab and come up at various points in the wall. Getting your home uncomfortably hot may help. If you have a main valve in the home try directing a hair dryer into the opening in the wall around the valve it may help. as well as other openings around pipes that are closest to the valve.
Be ready to turn off any main valve inside or outside to stop the flow of water if there is a burst pipe that freezes.
You may want to call a plumber to help. Sometimes they may have a electric pipe thawing machine which can thew metal pies if that is what you have.
Ya, the water pipe outside burst. It’s a copper one by the faucet outside. Part of it is PVC and part copper. Is there something I can do instead of calling a plumber to help fix it?
I live in a new house, built on a slab, plumbed with pex, in Northwest Ark. MY water is frozen and I have no idea where the freeze is. I put a heat source in the meter box, thinking the meter cold be it, but that has not worked. Suggestions???
Hi Jimmy,
You are on track with heating the pipes up.
Since the meter box does not seem to be the problem lets try moving the heat to other areas like the main valve in the home on out towards the fixtures. Also crank up the heat inside your home and see if that helps.
Basically this is a trace the pipes and heat them up situation.
Easier said then done! At least you don’t have to worry about bursting pipes in most cases with PEX.
I live in Atlanta in an old house, we have no water this morning and I think the pipes are frozen, I have put a space heater in front of the pipes where they come into the house in the basement. There are no leaks and the pipes are pvc. How long does it usually take to unfreeze the pipes? I don’t know of a way to heat them on the outside of the house. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Alison,
I wish I could take or, Yankee Weather back as we build our homes for it up here, but I’m powerless in that department.
How cold is your basement? I’d only worry about it there if it is below freezing or, close to freezing with a cold draft on the pipes.
Your main supply coming in may be frozen underground and with an older home you might be pre-plastic having metal pipes where a plumber that has a electric pipe thawing machine could thaw them but, in Atlanta that may be hard to find a welding machine may be used. I wouldn’t want to use one inside the home as there is a fire danger from arcing caused by a broken pipe but underground that wouldn’t be a problem. The machines we plumbers use are very low voltage so they do not arc.
Dark tarps spread on the ground above your main on a sunny day may help warm the ground.
We live NE Texas. Our hot line froze. We live in a older home and the pluming has been re done.
The hot line goes from the heater(inside the house) through the outside wall and then right angles in the ground. Runs underground back up the side of the house and right angles into the kitchen cabinet under the sink and to the rest of the house. How do you unfreez the pipes or even find the freez?
Hi Chad,
Basically find any place where the pipes are exposed to freezing temperatures or, drafts and warm them up.
Turn the heat in your home up uncomfortably hot it may help.
Hairdryers work great at warming pipes in frozen areas.
I would suspect pipes in the walls or, attic less so under the slab.
We livew in a mobile home in Kansas and our water is fine but our drains are frozen on one side of the house. The guest bathroom, kitchen sink and washing machine drain all into the bathtub in the guest bathroom. Any ideas?
Hi Raina,
Is your trailer skirted?
If so get some heat going under there in the area under the affected drains.
Be careful you don’t get things too hot.
I live in an older home(pier and beam)in south Texas. My washer and dryer are located on an exterior wall of my unheated detached garage. Water is not flowing into the washing machine, so I guess I have a frozen pipe. Incidently, I have had no problems with the water running inside my house. Where should I start looking? Do I need to turn off the water main?
Hi Heidy,
Somewhere between where the pipes in your house cut off to feed the garage and the washer in the unheated garage there is a freeze. I’d get heat going in the garage where the washer supply pipes are for starters. If that doesn’t work trace the pipe under the house as well.
My bathroom shower pipes have been frozen for 2 days now,rest of the house has been fine. I think they are finally thawing, but my tub is not draining quickly, and I’m afraid to run water full force yet in fear of bursting pipes. Any suggestions? Also, should I leave water in faucet dripping, it’s still supposed to be very very cold tonight (in north Texas)? I don’t want to cause further damage in drain line.
Hi Michelle,
I hope the slow draining is only a partial freeze up and not a plug up…
Run hot water for a while and see if it helps or is plugged up.
Dripping faucets can cause the drain to freeze up which is not an easy thing to cure.
If the shower is not presently flowing get some heat in there to warm up the pipes.
Give more detail on your home.
Is it a slab, crawl space, or, basement?
Thank you so much! I’ve got water running again, and finally the drain must have thawed, but my cold water pressure seems to come and go now. I’ve noticed a lot of rust I think coming out, and have had to clean the filter in the showerhead (I dont have a faucet) every other time I use shower. It’s still cold; I have a crawl space, but I dont’ think I can get back to where the tub pipes run.
We live in a converted barn. All of the pipes are PVC. All of then have frozen. We had space heaters on them all night and all day, and they are still frozen. Would it melt the PVC if I went outside and used a heat gun on the ones outside?
Hi Kathryn,
I do hope that you mean CPVC and not PVC. Because if it is PVC my recommendation would be to cut all the pipe out inside the building and reinstall the pipes with the proper material. PVC is not allowed inside at all nor outside above ground and cannot ever be used for hot water.
If it is CPVC post back and I’ll try to offer help.
hi i leave in ireland recently the weather condition get realy bad and my water pipes gat frozen
hi i leave in ireland ond recently weather gat bad and water in the pipes get frozen is there anything that can be don to un freeze them
Hi Eve,
Try using a space heater to heat up the area, or read some of the many comments here that include some great tips :)
My drains (only in the bathroom) and water pipes (whole house) are frozen and have been for a two days now. I do have a crawl space under the house and put a space heater down there, I also turned up the heat and have a heater in the bathroom. But nothing seems to be helping. I have read all the advice here and I can not afford a plumber at the time. And Kansas is not going to get any warmer and I have two small kids. Do you have any advice on how to speed the process up a little.
Help! I live in a ranch house on a slab in the Atlanta metro area. Woke up this morning to NO WATER! Mom and I have been holding blow dryers to the pipes under the bathroom sink but they are plastic and it doesn’t seem to be doing any good. Dad has called a plumber. Yes, on a SUNDAY! That will cost a fortune I know.
I live in a mobile home in Upstate New York its been about -11 the past few nights woke up this morning no water at all the main line come out of the ground has about 8 to 9 feet of slack then goes into the home i was under there for 2hrs with 2 hair dryers then finally i put a 75,000 btu salamander under the trailer let it run for 2 hrs as well still nothing in the whole house and it was really warm under the house any ideas?? im pretty sure i tried everything now i have the main wrapped in heat tape
Hey I live in a house and we are having problems with the main line and are in the process of getting it fixed. At the moment our water supply is coming from a neighbor running a hose to our water line. Whats the best way to unfreeze a rubber hose and keep it unfrozen?
Amazing. We live in Kansas and put a space heater in our laundry room as the pipes go up the north exterior wall. We placed the space heater in the room for 3 days and yet on the 4th day the drain froze. Pulled the washer and dryer from wall and put the space heater closer and put another one on top of the washer to put extra heat into the room. The drain is still frozen 4 days later.
My oh my. Have to hope that as the weather heats up a bit this week that the drain unfreezes. Hate to call anyone out and pay to have the drain heated.
Any other cheap ideas someone can offer?
I heard something about table salt might try that