Ask Me Help Desk - Frozen Pipes !

Good day!

I have frozen pipes. I have a gas water heater with two zones. The upstairs zone is frozen. Wife left the heat off one day... ahhh. I wanted to try to thaw the pipe, but thought since it has been two+ days the heat upstaris (17 degree's ouside) has been off it might be worthless to try to do so. I have a extended cape with crawl spaces on either side. Some spots are not reachable. The pipe appears to be all insulated... but I know of some elbows that are not insulated. I have opened my crawl space so that the heat from the house can get in.I am very handy and take care of all the plumbing in my house. I am concerned as this can be a ticking time bomb waiting to occur. BTW... I have a circulating pump (green) that has been on since the heat was left on. Will that cause damage?

What should I do?

Weather focast is mid 40's for the next few days... will that be enough to thaw pipes?

Any help would be much appriciated.

Happy hoidays

If you get 40 degree weather you better secure all water flow in the system or you might suffer some major water damage. I would start by having some aux heaters available. Electric plugins or other method so you can turn the boiler off during that time. Then make sure the cold water feed to the boiler is off to limit the damage when it warms up and the water starts flowing again in the boiler system piping.

Then it will be a hunt to find any leaks in the system. A hand held communications system works great to allow someone to control the boiler water feed line whils the other person checks for leaks that way if a leak is bound the water flow can be stopped immediately by shutting off the boiler feed. This is how it goes until all leaks are found and repaired. Then normal boiler commissioning is in order to restore the heat.

I have been there many times before with customer units and i do not envy your position with the job you might be facing.

Good luck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hvac1000

If you get 40 degree weather you better secure all water flow in the system or you might suffer some major water damage. I would start by having some aux heaters available. Electric plugins or other method so you can turn the boiler off during that time. Then make sure the cold water feed to the boiler is off to limit the damage when it warms up and the water starts flowing again in the boiler system piping.

Then it will be a hunt to find any leaks in the system. A hand held communications system works great to allow someone to control the boiler water feed line whils the other person checks for leaks that way if a leak is bound the water flow can be stopped immediately by shutting off the boiler feed. This is how it goes until all leaks are found and repaired. Then normal boiler commissioning is in order to restore the heat.

I have been there many times before with customer units and i do not envy your position with the job you might be facing.

Good luck.

Thanks for the reply... should I shut the heat off for the second zone? (one that is frozen) Wait until the temp comes up 40's tomorrow and Christmas day. Stinks that it is Christmas Eve, but I have to do what I have to do.

I have some electric pipe warmers on some other pipes. They are the wire kind with no thermostat. Should I wrap them on the pipes and turn them on? I am thinking that copper conduts heat and it will aid in defrosting the pipes. If so... should I leave the heat off in that zone while defrosting or turn it on..?

Needless to say I am in for some fun times. If not... I am lucky, but not out of the wood yet.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

Regards,
Mike

At this point anything you can due to speed up the defrost is good but make sure you secure the water feeds to those lines or when it breaks loose you might have a flood on your hands. Usually we used propane fired torpedo heaters in crawl spaces and other areas for a quick defrost but I may add that we did not allow occupancy for the owners while the propane heaters were fired up since that can cause other health problems if you know what I mean.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hvac1000

At this point anything you can due to speed up the defrost is good but make sure you secure the water feeds to those lines or when it breaks loose you might have a flood on your hands. Usually we used propane fired torpedo heaters in crawl spaces and other areas for a quick defrost but I may add that we did not allow occupancy for the owners while the propane heaters were fired up since that can cause other health problems if you know what I mean.

Right on... I will keep you posted... going to thaw now.

Thanks for the tips

I know exactly what you are about to go through. Good luck. BTW Merry Christmas and at least you still have your home when so many others do not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hvac1000

I know exactly what you are about to go through. Good luck. BTW Merry Christmas and at least you still have your home when so many others do not.

Well good news!! I closed the feed and the return last night. Cracked open the purge's on both ends. The return end had a standard spicket for draining. I attached a hose and ran it to my slop sink. Only one gallon came out of the return. Darn ICE... I also left the crawl space open slightly to raise the temp.

I awoke this morning and closed the feed purge. I then opened the valve for the feed. Water was coming out of the return and into the slop sink. YES... progress!! I then turned on the circulating pump and opened the return. Cold water came out of the pipe for about a minute or so. Then... warm water. As soon as I felt the air was out of the loop, I shut the return off to the sink. Craked the return valve to the main return and I was in business. I did a sweep of the pipes looking for leaks. None... looks like I am in business.

I never thoutht I would find the clinking of a baseboard heat to be a good sound. This morning it was like music to my ears. I now am on a first name basis with my Well-Mclain Gold... read the manual like it was my job.

One of my buds mentioned that he put anti-freeze in his system. That is a great idea. Will it feed back into my drinking water if the flow control breaks?

Thanks so much for your posts... I guess I can say that fat man came early for me.

Merry Christmas and Happey New Year!!

First you need to use a special antifreeze and second antifreeze loops are isloated usually by the use of a plate heat exchanger or other heat exchanger method. Doing this properly could be expensive for both labor and materials since an additional pump would be necessary. This way the part of the system that needs to have antifreeze will be isloated from the rest of the system. There are many options. Some reading for you below.

http://www.heatinghelp.com/pdfs/235.pdf

Copy and paste this into www.google.com for more answers.

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