Frozen Water Line, Will this do any good?

[hosspuller]

Logically, I think you've done the correct thing. Heat always travels from hot to cold. The earth is warmer than the air temperature in your area. The snow insulates the warmer earth from the colder air, now. In the Spring , the reverse is true. Short of heating the ground surface above the water line, (bonfire anyone? ) stopping the heat loss at the water line will eventually thaw the line.
Perhaps, instead of snow, lay rigid foam insulation above the line. In the Spring, bury the foam above the water line.
A sheet of foam insulation above the line may be worth a foot or more of dirt.

 

[Egon]

The garden hose idea may be you best bet and wait till Mother Nature thaws out the system.
Plastic hose will also work. If the line could be elevated so it drains at either end would be nice.

 

[Paul Thornton]

When my septic line froze I dug it up and laid 2" x 2' of rigid foam over it, solved the problem.

 

[2funkids]

When I had My septic site checked in the winter they told me to light a bag of charcoal over the spot. The next day the frost was gone. I recently had to do it again to bury my moms dog. With your situation I would think the frost is just going to freeze it again? Is there any way to run current through it to heat it? I'm far from an electrician.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I had a bunch of white styrofoam 2" 4x8 sheets and hummed and hawed about employing them. That stuff makes such a terrible mess and is almost impossible to collect, so I decided against it. Foolish maybe.

I will get the 3/8" pex pipe later this week and may try to inject hot water up the line with some help from a friend this weekend. That's plan B

My plan C, if B does not work is to take a 1000 litre square poly tank I have mounted in a forkable frame(used for fire fighting when burning brush), clean it, fill it, add a little javax and park it behind the house. It is meant to be pressurized, so that would work well. What I have not figured out is how to keep it above freezing and still maintain the pressurized state. The short line to the house outside tap could be wrapped in a heating cable and insulated. I hope it does not come to this although doing it as proof of concept could be kind of interesting.

 

[SPIKER]

The SNOW will help to keep the well below 0 cold air off of the dirt and driving the frost deeper. The use of hot water if you can back feed it might work IF you have a small trickle but leaving the line drip will also open it up as well water pushed warmer than frost & opens it back up. If you still have some of that styrofoam & some garden hose you can clear off the snow run the garden hose out and back then use a small pump to pump hot water out and back to the tank, lay styrofoam as thick as you have on top of hose and then put some snow on top to hold it in place * insulate it more. a small transfer pump can be used to pump hot water from tank out and back into the inlet circulating the hot water to warm the ground from above it wont be fast but faster than waiting till spring...

M

 

[Billrog]

Trying to pump water into a blocked pipe would be along the same lines as pushing a rope. Anything you cover the ground with will not help the pipe thaw. Heat is your only option.

 

[Dutch445]

i wonder if you can try warm air, maybe from a blow dryer or heat gun, through the
pex pipe instead of water? maybe it won't make such a mess.
if you can get to the pipe can you add an extension to get to a more
comfortable place to work? if you can run the smaller pex thru, maybe compressed
air first, to clear the line of standing water, then some warm air from a heat gun or
blow dryer, condensed into the pex.. i would imagine the pex could continually
be pushed ahead as you melt the ice.

i'm still on the "covered creates thaw" theory though. if there is no more cold
getting to the ground, then i don't see why the ground won't start to thaw
from the bottom up. but, you may need a wider area covered.

 

[murphy1244]

You need to stack hay or straw on the ground above the pipe it will thaw in about 12 to 24 hours.

 

[Industrial Toys]

My plan was to take a metal five gallon pail, put a pipe fitting in the bottom (just so on top of everything else, I don't need to worry about priming) and attach a small noisy little 110volt pony pump I got somewhere. Then feed my pex I am inserting into the 3/4" water line with that. I will try and make sure the return water goes into the pail. Then I had planned on immersing an electric BBQ starter into the pail. I have used it to heat water! I know, sounds like a really good recipe for electrocution and I don't care to die in that terrible place. Plus, pitty the poor rescue worker trying to pull my body out of that small hole! So in that respect, I will probably have power on a GFI but am already dreading the false tripping! Maybe an isolation transformer would do the trick.

I suspect, I will need a lot of heat. I once had this bright idea of clearing the frozen eaves troughs with a garden hose connected to the domestic hot water supply. The heater was empty it seemed almost immediately and I had accomplished nothing except getting soaked through to my underware!