Frozen Pex

bill nye_3

What can you do with frozen pex ?  If it were copper I could hook up a thawing machine, or I could hold a torch flame on the pipe.

 She was away for the week end, ran out of oil, it was 6°F.  Got oil today, her parents let the driver in to start the burner and then left 5min. later. House was cold for two or three days. I just left at 10:05 PM, still no heat.



Finished basement, walls go right up to floor joist and box off last bay for entire width of house. Pex tubing lays right on top of concrete foundation, no insulation on pex. Pink itchy insulation prevents me from blowing heat gun or hairdryer down the bay. I had to give up. Tomorrow I think I will attach new pex to old pex and pull it through the bay.



Any thoughts ?  And yes it is a real butcher job.

Mark Eatherton

Possibly fight fire with fire....

or actually thaw water with water...



I had to do this on my own home in the hills before I got smart. Long story short, my shallow sewer froze due to lack of snow cover and extremely cold temperatures and constant trickle from modcon boiler. So, in an effort to thaw the line to the septic tank, I took a piece of 1/2" PEX, connected it to the potable hot water, and turned the water on slow while pushing the PEX down the drain, all while using a wet vac to pick up the ick water backing up into the floor drain. I too gave up, and went back up stairs for a while to think it over, and when I came back down, the far end of the PEX was solidly frozen, and wouldn't even take hot water...



Plan B: Went to the hardware store and picked up a coil of 1/4" PEX (ice maker or swamp cooler supply line) and necessary adapters to make it work with a hose bib. Ran this inside the 1/2", while forcing hot water into the 1/4", and again sucked up the return water with wet vac. Finally got the 1/2" PEX free, and reconnected the hose bib to the 1/2" and finished the job of thawing the sewer line.



After that experience, I realized that I needed to take the condensate produced, hold it in a 5 gallon bucket with a float actuated pump, and discharge it all at once instead of allowing it to trickle through the freeze zone. That was 3 winters ago, and I've not had any problems since, but I keep the 1/2" and 1/4" PEX just in case...



If you know which tube it is thats frozen, and have access to it, you too should be able to force hot water through the 1/4" PEX and break ice.



Good luck.



Alternatively, you could rent a 350,000 btuH L.P. construction heater and turn it loose inside the house. Keep people out until it thaws (CO potential is HIGH) and air the house out well before allowing reentry.



ME

bill nye_3

Mark

I've done both of your ideas in the past. The problem here is the finished basement and limited access to the pipe. It would be isolated from the construction heater and the water would damage the walls, ceiling, floors etc.

When my Dad worked for a company that owned a water company we thawed waterservice pipes with 3/8" poly tubing, 100 ft coils. We had a trailer with two 40 gallon propane water heaters and a 100 pound propane tank. I think we used compressed air to push the water out of the water heaters. It was a really bad cold winter that year. Just kept pushing the poly tubing just as you described.

bill nye_3

Up - date

Well, I went back this morning and the zone had thawed and heat was back on. Last night I exposed as much of the pipe as possible, left closet doors open, and turned other zones way up. It helped that the outdoor temperature had gone up above freezing.