Water Pipe Frozen???

YIKE! This morning, we just found out that we have no running hot water, so we contacted our home builder (we have 1 year home warranty - lucky us!) about the problem and he came over to check it out. Not sure what was wrong with it, so he decided to call the plumber and have them come over here tomorrow to find out why.

Do you think our water pipe is frozen? The cold water is running just fine. Upstair bathrooms' hot AND cold water are running just fine. It's just our first floor's 1/2 bathroom and kitchen that has no hot running water. Weird, uh? If freeze is the cause of the problem, what can you do about it? I mean, what should we do to prevent it from happening again?

Do you think it's because of the freezing weather? If that's the case, then why it didn't happen when we had snow a week ago??

 

Could be the hot water heater.

 

I've always wondered why they call it that. If it's hot water, why do you need to heat it?

Shouldn't it be "cold water heater"?

 

frozen

Same thing happened to me last year. The pipe that was frozen was on the back of the house. I crawled under house and used a hair dryer on the pipe that had frozen. It took about 35 mins of work,and you have to use caution due to any material that may be flamable. Your home owners warrenty may not cover the labor,you may want to contact the plummer before he comes to find out his charges.

 

Do you think it's because of the freezing weather? If that's the case, then why it didn't happen when we had snow a week ago??



It was colder last night than it was last week when it snowed.

 

Also, don't forget the old tip...leave your taps trickling when the weather is supposed to be c-o-l-d. Helps the freezing pipe problem.

Frogger

 

Actually you only need to leave one tap trickling. The idea is to keep the water moving through the outside (feeder) pipe. Once the moving water enters the building, the building's insulation will keep it from freezing.

 

Why does hot water freeze faster than cold water?

 

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/hot_water.html

Note, it doesn't always, but sometimes it does.

 

The Mpemba effect

 

http://library.thinkquest.org/C008537/cool/freeze/freeze.html

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/hot_water.html

 

In short, no one knows why.

 

Hey guys! My hot water is back to normal as of 1 pm today! Wow, talking about a loooong time to "thaw" it out! Anyone here have any good advice on how to prevent from happening again??

 

When temps go below freezing, keep one tap running (like Frogger said)

 

You'll get conflicting advice. Mine has frozen before, but it was at my well, not under the house. My well pipes are now heavily insulated. Under the house, we just turned the light on to help keep things warm. Some say to close the vents, some say leave them open (which is what a plumber told me to do). I am not sure of the correct way, but we leave ours open. You can leave water dripping somewhere in your house to keep water moving through your pipes, that keeps it from freezing too. Maybe the one toilet that runs at our house serves a purpose after all! :lol:

 

I have county water. Looks like we're going to try "dripping" water method next time. Hope our water bill doesn't go too high!

 

Whenever we had county water it didn't effect the bill... or at least none we noticed.

Just a slight trickle works.

 

Thanks

 

:lol: :lol:

 

The warranty that came with our home (9 years ago) stated to close all the vents at temperatures below 20. Keep them open at higher temperatures to avoid moisture issues.