Frozen Water Main
Woke up this morning and had no water anywhere in the house. I’m pretty sure the water main froze somewhere between the street and my cellar. Any suggestions on how to warm up or unclog a frozen main that do not involve praying for warmer weather (a plumber I called already suggested that).
patolucas
in Plumbers and Plumbing 10 years and 4 months ago
9
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9 replies
lui1828 | 10 years and 3 months ago
Brooklyndave9: I had the same frozen service pipe problem. I live Gravesend Brooklyn and the pipes froze on Presidents Day. I did not get water back until three weeks later. I had the house for 30 years and this is second time the pipe froze. In both cases I had to wait until the pipe thaw by itself. How did the the plumber attach the Hot Shot? Was if from the street side or from inside the house?
brooklyndave9 | 10 years and 4 months ago
I had the same issue, my house was without water for 3 weeks. We first had a plumber come and he attempted to put a torch on the main to heat it and possibly get it to thaw. (this was the first thing I attempted before I called him) It did not thaw. He said we would have to wait for warmer weather or to call a water mains firm to assist. I did call a company that specialized in water mains and a rep came out to my house. He told me this: “Your water main is frozen. We will come out tomorrow to replace it for 10K” I thanked him and said I’d call him if interested. I did not call. I called the city several times for help and filed complaints.The DEP did call me back and did come out to take a look. They offered some advice but the pipe from your house to the city feed in the street is the homeowners responsibility, period. They will do nothing for you if you have a frozen water main. Over the next few days I had a space heater directly under the mains pipe (this did nothing) and would try the torch several more times with no success. After getting some more information on what my options were (besides waiting for warm weather..and it turns out I probably would have waited until June) I found out about Hot Shot machines that thaw water pipes and also a method that involves inserting a tube into the main from the house and using a pump to push warm water through the pipe to thaw it. Around this time I found out one of my neighbors also had a frozen main. She had a plumber come out and attempt pumping water through her main. The results were an eye opener for me because I found out he worked for 7 hours to thaw out 45-50 feet of frozen pipe. (This means the pipe was frozen basically from just outside the wall all the way to the street valve.) The scary part is he couldn’t get the pipe to thaw completely. She was still without water. The next day I had another plumber come. He put a Hot Shot machine between my water main and hers and let it go for about 2 hours. At that point her main thawed and she had water again. Good news for her but after an additional 2 hours mine was still frozen. No surprise because I probably still had 50 feet of solid ice while her side was mostly thawed the day before! At that point my plumber went to work with the water pump method and sent water through my main using the remaining water in my HWH. The outcome was almost exactly the same as what happened to my neighbor. He thawed 45 – 50 feet of pipe but still was unable to thaw it completely. It was now around 6pm and he thought he’d wrap up for the day and sleep on it to think about what to try next. What happened next was Murphy’s Law..as he went to normal up my water main connection (the pipe is original and over 100 years old) some of the pipe collapsed and he had to cut the pipe and rethread. It was at this point the remaining ice in my main decided to give way and we now had full water pressure shooting through the pipe into my basement and no way to stop it. In the end he was able to get everything hooked up and back to normal. The good news is we have our water back, the bad news is that after all was said and done we will need to replace our mains pipe after all because there is damage to it. Just thought I’d throw this out there in case it helps someone in the future. I know one thing I will be doing differently for next winter: When we get some really cold weather I’ll be leaving a tap cracked so hopefully I won’t have to deal with this ever again.
no-permits | 10 years and 4 months ago
very curious about this. please let us know what happened.
resident2 | 10 years and 4 months ago
If you only recently had the Main replaced, it sounds to me like it was not done correctly; not replaced deep enough, the ground not packed back properly etc.
Arkady | 10 years and 4 months ago
Get the people who did the work last year to come take a look.
patolucas | 10 years and 4 months ago
Thanks for the tip Master Plvmber. Unfortunately, the nearest fire hydrant is pretty far up the street. Any other suggestions? I’ve read online about passing a thin rubber hose through the main and circulating warm water with a sump pump. Ever heard of this or know someone who does this kind of thawing? Do you think tomorrow’s “warm” spell will be enough to at least get some water running? Otherwise are my options really to either change the entire water main (again! I just did it last year!) or to wait it out until the spring?
Master Plvmber | 10 years and 4 months ago
In some cases we can connect a pipe thawing machine to the water main in the house and to a nearby fire hydrant. It doesn’t always work, but it often does.
JohnHancock | 10 years and 4 months ago
I just defrosted a pipe behind a tile wall by pointing a photo clip-on light (you know the silver cone shade light you can buy for cheap at any hardware store) with a 100 watt bulb in it pointing it right on the wall as close as you can get. Within an hour the tiles were nice and hot and the pipe behind it gently defrosted.
dorkofwindsor | 10 years and 4 months ago
my money would be on the pipe being frozen where the water main comes into the house. did you try a space heater there?