How long for frozen supply pipes to thaw?

[Pennypacker]

Hi All,

We lost our water supply on 21 December and it has yet to return. Our entire block of flats are without water (but the blocks to either side never lost water). Scottish water is saying that the mains are running fine and the plumbers who have come out believe that it is a frozen supply pipe. I understand that these things happen, and that there is very little that can be done... but I'm just curious as to how long I should wait before suggesting that it is something beyond frozen pipes. It has been above freezing since Sunday (26 Dec) and I would have thought that we would have seen some movement by now. Any advice on how long it might take for these pipes to thaw would be appreciated.

 

[marsaday]

8 days for us. just unfroze today ! So probably took 2 days at least to thaw out. maybe 3.

 

[Pennypacker]

Thanks Marsaday. GOOD NEWS! Within minutes of starting this thread the water started flowing!!!!

 

[architect1337]

What's interesting is that water will melt at 4 Degrees - not 0 Degrees. It freezes at 0C. Running water and pressure changes these values slightly but typically, water won't melt until the surrounding temperature gets a few degrees higher than zero (which has only been in the last few days for some regions).

 

[dereks123]

Ours has been off since middle of December when we had several consecutive nights of -13 and lower even. Only yesterday did the ambient air temperature get above +4 and stay like that until 5pm so with snow still on the ground and melting quite slowly we could be talking about a few more days. That would mean more than 3 weeks with no water. Amazing how we have adapted to this using 2 25l containers and showering at my mother's - luckily just 10 mins away. Tried the usual heat gun on pipes for hours etc just under the stopcock which has thawed (and steamed out) all of the residual water in the system - unfortunately we hasve no way to get that heat down the plastic part and of course fingers crossed it hasn't ruptured. Other than ripping up the floor to check the crawl space I'm out of ideas beyond the waiting game. Recommendations please...is it worth getting a plumber out at this stage?

 

[neeleyveeley]

I'm in the same position at the moment, posted on another thread. Has peoples pipes thawed out at all? I'm beginning to doubt that mine is frozen now as time goes on but warmest I've seen is 6 deg C here during the day with it being down to -8 deg C when it finally stopped working - strange also as I saw -12 deg C last week and had no problems and -16 deg C in January this year again with no problems so why now or is it a blockage caused by something else??

As for the plumber I'd either wait a little longer or maybe look at a specialist if you have to call someone out - we've talked to a plumber but without breaking into the mains water supply he cannot suggest anything further for us to try and I cannot think of anything else either to try now. Can a survey be carried out to locate a blockage without digging up the whole driveway and costing a massive amount?

 

[dereks123]

Well 3rd Jan and still no water. Managed to persuade Scottish Water to treat as emergency supply issue and a job has been raised to check the specific supply pipe to my house. If it ain't that and it ain't frozen then I'm looking at the diggers coming in. After a heated discussion with the ever helpful insurance company, I'll be hard pushed to get a claim through if that's the case. The wording and interpretation of the policy is at best ambiguous and seems designed to make you think such a thing is covered (something I did look for in the policy before I bought it) when really you would need several additional products to fully cover the supply pipe. I'll post further updates as this develops as there could be some important learnings to share! In the meantime let's hope the taps just come back on.

 

[dereks123]

The latest. Scottish Water finally came out, cleaned the toby...well at least he thought it was my toby and was able to turn it. Seemed to me there was quite a bit of slush down there, but as he couldn't be sure it was mine due to street layout suggested waiting to see if last night's rain penetrated the ground enought to thaw...many did yeterday apparently. Conclusion was that supply pipe is likely frozen after the comms pipe after the property boundary. After pushing it, he said that I can insist that the toby is dug up and proper tracers etc done to fully diagnose the issue. Incidentally, by my reckoning the toby is only about 30cm below the asphalt - I thought 750mm was the bare minimum? Why SW couldn't have taken these steps this back in mid December is beyond me and proves as usual that you have to kick and scream for anything to be done. For the first time I was offered bottled water - something I didn't push for earlier as we have been able to fill our containers at relatives daily anyway, but again should this not be offered as standard from the word go? That said, SW are now treating the job as priority and awaiting a more thorough investigation today. The saga continues...

 

[Pennypacker]

I wish you the best. We were only without water for nine days and it was incredibly disruptive. I can't imagine what it's been like for you. Now that it's a "priority", hopefully things will get sorted soon.