Well, its been hovering around -15 the last couple days and, despite my best efforts: frozen pipe.
The hot water pipe to my kitchen sink appears to have frozen. Now, this is an old house (ca.1915~) so getting into the walls isnt really a thing unless you wanna have big repair job afterwards. So, what to do?
Well, first thing I did was head to the basement and put the kerosene heater in the area that I believed was right below the frozen area. No joy. Let it run all day and still no water.
Alright, next step was to take a small electric space heater, put it in the space under the sink and close the cabinet doors. Let that run all night. No joy.
At this point I’m rather irritated and somewhat worried. How do you heat a section of wall without setting fire to the house or having to rearrange everything?
As it turns out, there is a small hole in the wall in the cabinet below the sink. The drainpipe for the sink has a small opening next to it from a plumbing nightmare a few years ago. Could I somehow pipe hot air into that opening and heat the wall from the inside?
I channeled my inner MacGyver……”Talk to me, Goose Mac..”
One hair dryer + one roll of packing tape + one empty cardboard tube from Christmas wrapping paper = intrawall heat injector:
Took one minute to put it together, and five minutes for it to work and get the water flowing again. (And 24 hours to come up with the idea after exhausting other ideas.) Remember, kids: if its stupid and it works, it ain’t stupid.
He was a simp for his gun aversion, but other than that MacGyver had some tolerable survivalist cred.
Nice job, glad it worked out. I’m about an hour out of Missoula up the Blackfoot and it was -51 degrees actual temperature Friday night. Luckily the wind had stopped by then, but I still was up half the night making sure everything okay. That’s the coldest I’ve ever seen it. The horses seem to be doing okay and I still have open water for them at my pond, so all is good so far. Stay warm.
Wow. I was out ONCE in -45 in the Tetons. Couldn’t have any skin exposed period. But I don’t live in that like you do. Beautiful country you’re in, worth the squeeze.
Closest I could come is -18 temp last January here in the Central Highlands. Checked on the cattle and had two new calves. Running around prancing after each other, mommas yelling at them to simmer down. Lol, normal day, for them. People from away call me to check on things always ask how the cows handling the cold!? I tell them that story and chop wood all summer. Living the dream.
MF
Very clever. I wonder if that hole was there from a previous frozen pipe scenario?
Out my way if it is going to drop to negative temperatures, we open the kitchen sink cabinet and place a electric heater there. As some plumbing is in the wall between the kitchen and garage the garage also gets a heater.
When I lived in Canada (Ontario) we had a house that started out as a cedar log cabin, then had a second story added around the 1910s…not much insulation up there, even when they added vinyl siding around 1970. And the master bath pipes were run up from the basement, in an outside wall (smh).
So, in the winter I’d put a small space heater in the basement where the pipes Teed off to go upstairs, and just let it run all the time. Did the job, but the main trick was not letting them freeze in the first place.
It’s been cold here on the Flatlake, but fortunately my house is well insulated.
I had to do something similar a few years back. But I had to cut into the sheet rock. I left the hole open for future freezes. Glad you don’t have water damage.
I feel your pain. I lived in Minnesota for 43 years in a farmhouse built an 1912. Came up with a number of interesting solutions. Best of luck!
Make sure that hairdryer doesn’t set the cardboard tube (& wrapping paper I see) on fire – or you will have bigger problems.
Not true. The ignition point of even thin paper is over 400 degrees F. Hair dryers don’t get nearly that hot and thicker cardboard is being used.
As we learned from Ray Bradbury….451* Farenheit is the ignition point of paper.
How about leaving the hot water valve open just to drip and keep hot water flowing through the pipe when its this cold.
Not sure how that helps a pipe that is already frozen.
May the inner MacGyverbe with you. Good one Commander.
I had pipes freeze in an apartment in Kansas. Since then when it gets below about 20 I will leave a faucet ever so slightly dripping and open the cabinets below the sinks.
Re: “simp”. I agree, and the irony of RDA taking the role as Col Jack O’Neill on Stargate SG1, is fantastic.
I know, right? I did appreciate the humourous MacGyver references in Stargate, though.
You did more than fine on that improvised fix. Kudos to you. Clearly you have the stuff to survive a Zombie apoc or a plumbing apoc.
I read your post in spite of how I feel about that guy. I’m glad I did, but it would have been easier on me if you had referenced Apollo 13. It wasn’t Just the show,, he’s actually very anti gun. I enjoyed the show, even with the Never use a Gun thing, because I’ve always been that kinda guy.. Finding Stuff that will solve the problem has been a Thing since I was a kid. But once I found out his aversion to weapons was not just something the writers put in the show I can’t stomach that POS.
How do you know the freeze up didn’t Crack a pipe somewhere you can’t see? Hopefully not copper pipes. Neat fix you did. I like clever solutions. 🙂
We only hit minus 26 here south of Missoula a ways .
We run our water supplies up through the floor instead of the wall when we have a plumbing fixture in an exterior wall .
Take a second to jimmy the lines through the cabinet bottom , but solves the frozen pipe issue .
My part of Texas doesn’t freeze very often. I have flushing water in buckets and several gallons of fresh water for consumption and hygiene. I shut the water off at the meter and drain my inside plumbing. Deal with 2-3 days of freeze and as soon as Temps get a little elevated I turn it back on and take care of anything that’s pressing.
Had a similar problem in an older house many years back RE: cold AND hot water lines to one of the bathrooms in an addition on the second floor freezing, luckily caught it before the pipe burst, did something similar to solve the immediate problem.
The sort of longer term solution was turn off the water, put a ball valve in each water line in the basement to shut the water off and a Tee fitting above the valve in each line with a smaller valve to drain those sections of pipe. Whenever below zero temps were forecast I shut off both water lines and drained them. A PITA, certainly, but light years cheaper than ripping into 2 floors worth of walls to get to the pipe.
You will want to make sure that hole lets everything air out well. You just blew a lot of hot (potentially) moist air into that wall.
you wipe with bounty?
A emergency that did not require .50 cal or$50 bills, it’s always something but good outcome