andy pugh wrote: > I am at my parents' house for christmas. The water supply pipe is > frozen, somewhere underground and we have no water. This is putting > rather a crimp on things. > > Is there a well-known solution to this problem? It is a somewhat > unusual supply, being a private, communal supply fed from a spring > into a cistern. The cistern is not frozen, and we think that other > houses in the hamlet are OK. (Which at least limits how much pipe we > might have to dig up to warm up.) > > The pipes are plastic, so the idea of resistive heating is probably out. > > First thing is to turn the taps on. It may take a while, but if there is a pump somewhere that pressurizes the main, leaving taps open so there is a maximum pressure drop across the frozen spot may cause it to start to leak, and that will bring warmer water to the blockage. This can take several hours, but if you start to get even a slow drip, that will eventually melt the ice. I've gotten away with this trick a few times. Otherwise, unless you know there is a shallow spot in a specific place, it will be incredibly hard to figure out where the freeze is. You might try heating the line right at the foundation wall, making an assumption that the pipe is buried deeply except right where it enters the house. Use a propane torch, and make sure not to heat the pipe hot enough to risk a steam explosion.
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