Frozen Pipes In Glasgow

[Martin84]

This has been 4 days now & we have no water at all. Anyone know any tips etc? This happened last year & lasted a week. Absolute nightmare, I live in a semi detached. I went outside to the toby just on my drive & that turned no problem. I have looked to find the mains but it goes under the sink & under the floor, I have my floor tiled so no way of following where this goes.

http://forum.followfollow.com/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=12847038

 

[Blake]

open the doors under the sink and point a fan heater in there for a few hours which may help speed up the thawing process.

 

[Martin84]

open the doors under the sink and point a fan heater in there for a few hours which may help speed up the thawing process.

Have had a hairdrier pointing under the floor just below the sink, hopefully it helps.
Thanks

 

[Centralheatking]

If you have metal copper or lead mains you can hook up an electric arc welder with 2 earth clamps about 5m plus apart switch on at 120 amp and it will defrost but be carefull and stay with it -too close with the clamps and you can vapourise the pipe !

centralheatking

 

[Martin84]

If you have metal copper or lead mains you can hook up an electric arc welder with 2 earth clamps about 5m plus apart switch on at 120 amp and it will defrost but be carefull and stay with it -too close with the clamps and you can vapourise the pipe !

centralheatking

House is only 7 year old, looks like a plastic pipe mate.

 

[GrahamM]

Do you have vents round bottom of building. A mate of mine has constant problems during this weather with his pipes freezing. His pipes are uninsulated, running under house. Had to block of all his vents and attach a powerful fan heater to the vent closest to kitchen pipes and let it run for an hour or so. It has worked a number times now.

 

[Martin84]

Will have a look, its very weird because thats twice this year its happened, no1 else in my street gets it. All houses are the same & built 7 years ago.

 

[Fyne15]

Are your pipes still frozen? I have had no water since the 23 December and I am in Hamilton

 

[Martin84]

Yes still frozen. Have looked under my sink & can see the blue water pipe going under the floor, it seems to be sealed at the floor so would be pointless heating the cupboard where the pipe goes under the floor. Apparently my pipe comes from the main right under my house and straight to my kitchen at the back of the house. there is no coldness etc coming from the pipe.
Hopefully this settles quickly.

 

[Fyne15]

Have you had a plumber out?

 

[Martin84]

Yes mate, more or less told there is nothing he could do.

 

[Martin84]

Have you had a plumber out?

Got another plumber out yesterday & he says it must be frozen just outside house, as the house is warm & we now have no snow or ice outside it must be deep down. More or less that he cant do anything about it. He checked outside at the toby & that was fine. Hope it thaws soon as im choking for a bath in my own house .

 

[Martin84]

They are still frozen, I really can't believe this.

 

[joe brown]

Are you sure you dont have an airlock, is your heating working

 

[Martin84]

I have a combi boiler & it's working however the pressure is down to 0.5. How would I know about the airlock?

 

[GQuigley67]

mate I live in glasgow and its about 8 degrees at the moment, they should have thawed by now if they were frozen. Do you have no water to your house at all ?

 

[Martin84]

mate I live in glasgow and its about 8 degrees at the moment, they should have thawed by now if they were frozen. Do you have no water to your house at all ?

none at all mate

 

[Martin84]

I've called the water board & made them aware, surely the pipes still can't be frozen.

 

[oldplumber]

long term solution move to Ozz they only get flooded out, not frozen, so always have water. I gather my sister has just bought a boat out there!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Lisa]

Live near Glasgow and without water for 12 days this time, 7 days earlier in year. I'm sure it has been frozen. Our supply came back days after the ice cleared. We were lucky enough to get Scottish water to dig up the Toby and prove the frozen section lay between the mains and our Toby. If you haven't got your supply back yet get Scottish water to do a field visit- at the very least the may be able to link you to a neighbours mains supply. Can defrost your pipes faster. When Scottish water arrive they should have plans showing your mains supply. Your Toby needs to be at least 450mm deep. Good luck.

 

[GQuigley67]

preferably about 750mm deep

 

[Lisa]

How likely are we to get help from Scottish water to either move the supply from the mains deeper or insulate the pipes in the street? Our Toby is only 400mm deep - although the frozen section actually lay under the street. Thanks

 

[GQuigley67]

the regulations state that the pipe should be at a minimum depth of 750mm, get Scottish Water out to look at it and make them aware of this.

 

[plumbster3456]

its the water byelaws that states it and bs6700 its not an actual regulation its a recomendation so i am not sure if water board have to do anything

 

[GQuigley67]

seems unfair still if the byelaws state that they should be layed at this depth and the household suffers from frozen pipes due to the contractors laying the pipes at a non-suitable depth for frost prevention.

 

[plumbster3456]

seems unfair still if the byelaws state that they should be layed at this depth and the household suffers from frozen pipes due to the contractors laying the pipes at a non-suitable depth for frost prevention.

yes this statement is very true and i cannot see any reason why they would not do manything to fix it if it keeps freezing however the 750mm is a recomendation not a regulation so any plumber could put a pipe 200mm below the ground and not break a regulation its a very strange one especially as its in the water byelaws but i done the water byelaws training few years back and can actually remember that this is the case it confused me slightly at first but half of bs numbers are recomendations

 

[plumbster3456]

i know it sounds strange as it is in the actual water regulations however i think its worded like for example regulation 1 (a) recomends pipes be laid at no less than 750mm and no more than 1350mm

 

[GQuigley67]

yeh thats correct but I personally think it should be made a regulation judging by all the trouble weve had with frozen pipe, I seen on the news that belfast they wer digging up alot of mains due to been frozen and bursting.

 

[MikeC]

We live in Wishaw, Lanarkshire and are having the same problem in our seven-year-old semi-detached (Turnberry homes). Our water has been off since early Tuesday morning (on our sixth day without it now). There's no sign of anything changing either.
The water pipes seem to come in through a concrete floor and up into a kitchen cupboard. That's where the stopcock is, anyway.

Scottish Water say the problem is ours, because all our neighbours have water. But we've no idea where the blockage is, apart from it's probably in the supply pipe under the front lawn or driveway. I don't know who to call to get at it - plumber? Civil engineer? Should it not have defrosted by now or is ice in an underground pipe particularly hard to shift?

 

[Martin84]

Scottish water came out today, the guy poured a kettle of hot water beside the stopcock outside & we now have hot water, I tried this several times last week aswell lol.

 

[MikeC]

To update you:
I finally got water back into the house after 10 days without. Scottish Water brought out a digger and ripped up the pavement to get at the company stopcock/toby. There, they found ice on their side, which they removed, leaving swiftly afterwards. By the time I got home I noticed there was water pouring from the pipe into the trench but at least the water was back on again in the house (what a wonderful sound a refilling toilet is!). The following day I called the Scottish Water team head and someone else came out to fix the leaking outside pipe. Four days later a team came out to fill in the hole. We'd had to leave the water running since the pipe was repaired in case it froze up again when it was uncovered. Finally, everything was back to normal. Bliss.

I would say in my desperation, I called up a crusading water engineer called Jock Trodden who is an absolute diamond. He made a nuisance of himself to Scottish Water and even though he's down in Hampshire, he still outlined what to do in various circumstances and helped us though a tough situation.
Here's his website JTS Civil Engineers Ltd - Experts in underground water pipes
Office Tel : 01420 538384
Mobile : 07887 607009

By the way, a couple of days before the pavement was dug up, we did manage to get running water back in the house by linking our neighbour's outdoor tap to our own outside tap with a garden hose and turning on both taps. It worked really well but we had to disconnect the hose at night as it would have frozen.

 

[MikeC]

Another Scottish Water engineer came out a few days after the pavement was patched up to measure the depth of the toby/company stopcock. It was well within the regs, so it shows just how cold it was this winter for ice to form that far down.