frigophobia ?

[BikingBrian]

Good news biking_brian.
To be safe crack a valve open to relieve pressure on the line as it thaws.

Yup, water is turned off at the street, and I had already cracked open the valve that normally drains the water from the house.

[Wrightwood]

I spent a good part of the day finding/repairing the blown water fittings. The damage was caused from a closed bathroom door with no heat entering and the plumbing on an outer wall.

The pipes and fitting had good insulation but had no chance with last weeks freeze.

Fortunately the new carpeting was indoor/outdoor and the water was vacuumed up right away. There was some damage to kids toys and coloring books but overall not too much.





Notice this guy? Curt from Cford Plumbing came by to offer some assistance 




Notice the blow out in the galvanized T. The union expanded and blew the assembly apart.

[ForestGal]

Well, that looks pretty complicated, but I'm not mechanical at all.  Curt has been a godsend to me on numerous occasions - he and his staff are excellent! 

I think my heating/water problems are fixed - on Thursday a friend hooked up electric heater wire thingies and did insulating for my main water line into the house, and the drain thingy for the furnace.  He was able to "go shopping" in my garage and in one of the sheds and found most everything he needed - only had to go to Mtn. Hdwe. for the heating units and a special cover for one of the outside electrical outlets.

No broken pipes for now!   

I won't know until spring if either of the 2 other outside bibbs are damaged, when I turn the water back on to them, but I shut them off and drained them many weeks ago, so should be ok.

[KWBoy]

Just goes to show how dang strong freezing water is.  Did the siding, walls, and insulation dry out or did you have to replace some of it?

[Surfer_Dude]

Curt Ford is a straight shooter, I have had him work over here a few times.


I have pipe clamps in case of emergency ( I bought them at Mt. Hardware); here are a few other methods that might help.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk/epr4.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk/emergency_pipe_repairs.htm&h=300&w=400&sz=11&hl=en&sig2=U9-0QcC5pFUZid5NJhZX3A&start=31&tbnid=Mq8rYlx6dZ0zKM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&ei=iIizRZr7H5LMJKKc7TM&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpipe%2Bfixer%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

The clamp I have is insulated and screws down over the entire pipe.  I like it better for a quick emergency than the above methods and I strongly discourage the hammer method.

[Wrightwood]

Most of the water went down and the siding and insulation were OK.
The tenant was home and discovered it probably 1/2 hour after it happened so the damage could have been worse.

Pipe clamps would have done no good in this project. You can't put one around a union or a T fittings. They do have their place on straight runs.

One more thing - When I left there still were frozen pipes and more work may be needed.

Just goes to show how dang strong freezing water is.  Did the siding, walls, and insulation dry out or did you have to replace some of it?

[RennMan]

Wrightwood's pics remind me of the time my parents house had a frozen pipe.  This on the San Francisco peninsula, about 1990 or so, after a sustained hard freeze of about 4 days.

This was a 1" copper pipe, inside one of the two roof-mounted Solar Hot Water tanks we lovingly called "Coffins"  We figured that since the plumbing was under the tank, in the coffin, and on a south-facing roof, it would never be a problem.  At that point the coffins had been up on the roof for over 20 years.

They held 50 gallons each, and one of the feed lines had split linearly under one of the tanks, and 100 gallons of water came over the side of the roof, and onto the walk below.  My brothers and I came over with 50 lbs of rocksalt, to melt the ice, and one brother who was starting out as a general contractor cut out the split piece, and sweated in a new one.  We then covered all the pipes inside and outside the coffins with pipe insulation.

My brand-new girlfriend (at the time) had never met any of my family before that day; now she's watching us on the roof, trying to fix this thing.  She has now been my wife for almost 15 years.

Peace

[ezzpete]

yesterday i was walking on Snowbird, and noticed a house with a flooded front yard. it didn't look like anyone was there. if you have a weekend place near the middle of that street (south side), IM and i'll tell you which house.

[Wrightwood]

Pete,
You should call the water company and give them the info.

[Dr. Dstructo]

Wrightwood - Should we share the unorthodox pipe thawing method that I used on my underground frozen pipes?  After restoring service to my house, I thawed a 150 foot pipe at the camp.  That task required only 25 minutes by my method compared to 1 or 2 days that it would have taken to dig up the line, thaw it out and the bury it again.

[Nick]

The water company has been notified.

yesterday i was walking on Snowbird, and noticed a house with a flooded front yard. it didn't look like anyone was there. if you have a weekend place near the middle of that street (south side), IM and i'll tell you which house.

[Wrightwood]

That might be better handled by Personal Message as it could cause problems if done incorrectly.

If anyone still has a frozen water main with steel pipe you might want to contact Dr. Dstructo.

Wrightwood - Should we share the unorthodox pipe thawing method that I used on my underground frozen pipes?  After restoring service to my house, I thawed a 150 foot pipe at the camp.  That task required only 25 minutes by my method compared to 1 or 2 days that it would have taken to dig up the line, thaw it out and the bury it again.

[Dr. Dstructo]

That might be better handled by Personal Message as it could cause problems if done incorrectly.

I agree.

[ezzpete]

The water company has been notified.

yesterday i was walking on Snowbird, and noticed a house with a flooded front yard. it didn't look like anyone was there. if you have a weekend place near the middle of that street (south side), IM and i'll tell you which house.

cool,thanks.

[MojaveSidecar]

As a weekender, I think I am a happy camper...Knock on Wood.

Today was the first day I was able to come up since early December to check out my pipes(good excuse for a motorcycle ride;-).  However, since my cabin was rented over the holidays (vacation rental and knowing that..), the thermostat was set to an average of 68, and that seemed good so I did not turn my water off.

But now, in absence of renters, what we (the rental agent (Kris M) and I did was set my new forced air furnace to 55 degrees.  So far so good, no evidence of frozen pipes, but I'm afraid to look at my gas bill.   

My cabin is single story, 850 sq ft, two bed,1 bath. I now have forced air heat (Thank You John Laing) that I keep the thermostat set at 55.   Because of the way my house is configured on a sloping lot, my water heater is located in the crawl space under the house, which is plumbed with all galvanized steel pipe. I think that that water heater is the contributing factor to the workable temps in my crawl space. Just hate to see my next gas bill.

HTH

Randy from Burbank



It looks like the combination of all these factors has kept me lucky so far.... except for the gas bill.

[KWBoy]

  KLR you may need to take another loan out on your house.

[MojaveSidecar]

I assume the gas company will give me notice if my bill this month goes above $25... 

[BikingBrian]

We made the run up the hill this morning to check for any damage.  The part of the pipe in the crawl space that pops out of the ground and into the house under the kitchen sink was frozen, even with the electric heat tape on the pipe.  So I have no running water.  At least there's no major pipe rupture, although there could be a leak after everything thaws.  I originally thought that the heat tape was defective, but I tested it tonight with a bag of ice and it works fine.  I believe the problem was that I located the heat tape thermostat on the part of the pipe closer to the house instead of closer to the ground - so the thermostat was seeing the warmer temperatures from the house heat warming the pipes, and the heat tape wasn't turning on when needed.

The update above was from last week.  Rather than spend a lot of time thawing the pipe, I just had the water company close the valve at the street and headed back down the hill.

I got back to WW this weekend, had the water turned on at the street, and the water was flowing again.  No leaks, which I confirmed by reading the water meter before going to bed and reading it again when I woke up.  So I reinsulated and reheat taped the pipe (this time with the thermostat on the colder end of the pipe) and I'm back in business.

[michael]

[
The update above was from last week.  Rather than spend a lot of time thawing the pipe, I just had the water company close the valve at the street and headed back down the hill.

I got back to WW this weekend, had the water turned on at the street, and the water was flowing again.  No leaks, which I confirmed by reading the water meter before going to bed and reading it again when I woke up.  So I reinsulated and reheat taped the pipe (this time with the thermostat on the colder end of the pipe) and I'm back in business.

Someone did something correct in the design of your cabin.  No broken pipes is pretty amazing.  I soldered my third broken water line this weekend.  Let's not talk about the broken sprinkler line that destroyed a lot of the finish trim in a nice home.


[/quote]

[superMom]

Yeah, I was very smug thinking we had escaped the burst pipe problems also.  Almost all of our pipes are under the house where the furnace is also.  It is always hotter than the tropics down there so I really didn't worry.  Well......yesterday I went under the house to put the last of the Christmas stuff away and I hear drip drip drip - Grrrrr.  Looks like CFord will be getting more business.