Frozen pipes :-(

[dfelicia]

Well, it’s been unusually cold in CT since Xmas. My insert is in our family room, which is over our garage. The room is about 400 square feet with vaulted ceilings. I’ve been using the stove to heat the room for the past week.

Well, this morning it was back to work for me, and my wife isn’t comfortable feeding the stove. So I set the thermostat with just coals left in the stove and went to work. When I came home, the room was chilly. I turned up the heat and nothing.

The good news is that the zone with the frozen pipes exclusively feeds the one room. The rest of my house has heat. Plumber is coming in the morning, and I’m hoping the pipes didn’t split. Won’t know until they’re thawed.

Maybe this will be of help to others... just because your stove is keeping your house at 80 degrees doesn’t mean that baseboard heat can be turned off in subzero temps. The outside walls get cold enough to freeze the pipes, which never occurred to me.

Wish me luck!

 

[toddnic]

Underneath our house is very insulated but whenever the temps drop below 0F I turn on the fan on our HVAC unit to circulate air throughout the house. Moving the air via the HVAC fan doesn't move a lot of heat but it does keep some level of additional warmth underneath the house. We heat 99% with the wood stove, but I try to keep some air moving to mitigate the pipes from freezing.

 

[xman23]

Make sure you don't leave the house with the water on and it thaws out.

 

[dfelicia]

Make sure you don't leave the house with the water on and it thaws out.

Yeah, that would be a disaster. I shut off the valve feeding water to the frozen zone, so if the pipes are split then only the water already frozen inside them should come out. Really hoping for best case, which would be plumber gets them thawed and they’ve not been damaged.

 

[velvetfoot]

Perhaps you can valve off the zone til the plumber comes.

 

[Sodbuster]

Yeah, that would be a disaster. I shut off the valve feeding water to the frozen zone, so if the pipes are split then only the water already frozen inside them should come out. Really hoping for best case, which would be plumber gets them thawed and they’ve not been damaged.

Are they exposed? Doesn't take a plumber to thaw a pipe.

 

[dfelicia]

Are they exposed? Doesn't take a plumber to thaw a pipe.

No, they’re sheet-rocked into the garage ceiling. I was thinking of getting one of those propane heater things to get the garage food and hot - the ones that run off a regular 5lb tank. If the pipes are split, though, I’m up a creek. I’ll see what advice he gives me in the morning.

 

[begreen]

Colder weather is coming. Keep track of basement temps, especially it wood burning on the main floor. Don't be afraid to run the boiler or furnace occasionally to warm up the basement. It's a lot cheaper than fixing busted pipes.

 

[Sodbuster]

Colder weather is coming. Keep track of basement temps, especially it wood burning on the main floor. Don't be afraid to run the boiler or furnace occasionally to warm up the basement. It's a lot cheaper than fixing busted pipes.

Or let a faucet trickle a little like I just did after reading this post.

 

[electrathon]

The longer the pipes are frozen the more likely they are to split. The plumber will hit it with an arc welder, if it has not split yet it does not take too long to get them open.

 

[dfelicia]

Or let a faucet trickle a little like I just did after reading this post.

Not a bad idea, though in my case I’m talking about baseboard heating pipes (a boiler sends hot water through pipes in the baseboards to make radiant heat). So my lesson was to make sure the heat gets turned on during extreme cold, even if the stove has the house feeling warm and cozy.

 

[Dantheman300z]

I keep battling exposed pex lines freezing in my unfinished garage. Trickle trickle goes the faucets. I feel your pain.

 

[velvetfoot]

The plumber will hit it with an arc welder

That's interesting. No exposed flame. Less chance of fire?

 

[dfelicia]

That's interesting. No exposed flame. Less chance of fire?

That’s the theory. He’s here, now. Going to try to make the garage warm with a propane heater, then he’ll cut the pipe from the boiler and try to warm them with a welder. He’s cutting so the welder doesn’t heat all the pipes, since the problem is just in one zone.

Fingers crossed... this will be an expensive lesson when all is said and done.

 

[edyit]

he's cutting so the current doesn't feed through the whole system, i've seen guys do this with portable welders quite often here when service laterals freeze, remember to unhook your ground cable from the water line if you have one.

 

[firefighterjake]

When the sub zero weather hits I try to run all of my three zones for a few minutes once a day to keep the hot water moving through the pipes . . . and to move some heat in the basement/crawl space to warm up the area for the other pipes.

That said . . . I had a frozen drain pipe yesterday . . . first time that has happened since I've lived in this house (1996) . . . then again it's also been unusually cold for an unusually long time. I did find one area that may have been problematic and have since insulated that area.

Crossing my fingers for ya Dfelicia . . . I cannot tell you how happy I was when my wife reported the problem was with a drain pipe and the water had simply been pushed out of an air vent vs. having to tear down walls to get to a burst pipe.

 

[dfelicia]

All fixed, and no split pipes! Yes! I’ve never been so happy to write a check to a plumber in my life. Crisis averted.

 

[electrathon]

All fixed, and no split pipes! Yes! I’ve never been so happy to write a check to a plumber in my life. Crisis averted.

Very good news!

 

[CRJ700]

There unfrozen now but you don't want them to freeze again for sure. Did the plumber insulate the pipes for just free them up?

 

[Beer Belly]

When we get this cold, we limit the use of the stove to a few hours, and burn oil just for that reason. Had a friend who experienced the same thing you did, except his burst in the garage.

 

[electrathon]

There unfrozen now but you don't want them to freeze again for sure. Did the plumber insulate the pipes for just free them up?

When a pipe is inside a wall it is difficult to alter the insulation on it. you will usually end up doing a lot of drywall cutting to deal with it. Also, a common misconception is that insulation will generate heat, it does not. Insulation only retains heat. the proper way to insulate a pipe on an exterior wall is to only insulate on the outside, you leave a insulation void on the house side. This allows heat to migrate out from the room into the pipe. It is bad for thermal retention of the house, great for pipe longevity.

 

[begreen]

The proper way to insulate a pipe on an exterior wall is to only insulate on the outside, you leave a insulation void on the house side. This allows heat to migrate out from the room into the pipe. It is bad for thermal retention of the house, great for pipe longevity.

Why I would never put supply lines in an outside wall. They did this in our next door neighbor's house and they froze, then thawed but developed a pinhole leak. The damage done before the problem was located and fixed was significant. They had to fix it from the outside and inside which was not trivial.

 

[Dobish]

we have a number of our pipes along an exterior wall, but I didn't have a choice. I ended up building out the wall with 2x6 instead and putting a lot of insulation behind them. I had a pipe burst from not removing the hose from the bib a few years ago. that was an expensive project, as I had to tear out a built in book shelf, part of the ceiling, cut a joist, and replace it....

When i turned the water on this morning, it felt really cold... so i took the thermometer to it. 52º!

 

[dfelicia]

There unfrozen now but you don't want them to freeze again for sure. Did the plumber insulate the pipes for just free them up?

They’re buried inside the drywall, so adding more insulation is not a simple task. I’m just going to limit stove use and burn oil until this cold snap subsides.

We were able to surmise that the (likely) frozen portion of the pipe was the one directly over my garage doors. With the doors closed, there is a 1” gap along the top of both that just lets cold air dump in. Directly above that gap is the pipe (under 5/8” drywall). I’ll have to figure out how to close that gap without hindering the movement of the doors.

 

[Bad LP]

At least PEX doesn't split but it does mess up the fixtures when water freezes in it. I left the house at 62 when I left on Sunday morning. The LP tank was filled Thursday morning before I got there so if the power goes out then the genset and boiler have plenty of fresh fuel.