I live in MO and my water pipes are right under the house. It is freezing down there and my pipes are freezing. I have been defrosting them by dropping a space heater down a hole in the floor but am afraid the pipes are going to burst eventually.

Should I keep a space heater down there? Leave the hot or cold water dripping? To get new pipes put in to prevent this will cost quite a bit and will not be able to be done until Spring. This is past annoying.

The first thing I would do is to go around the outside of the house and make sure there are no drafts coming in from cracks, pipe holes, wire holes, or vents. If you have vents in your foundation close them or block them off with something.

Eliminating drafts will help considerably. secondly, if you use a forced air furnace for heat, you might be able to cut in a vent that will blow heat into the crawl space near where the freezing problem is. I don’t recommend the space heater and am not fond of heat tapes.

Another option is to insulate the walls of your crawl space (if possible to move around in there) with 1 inch thick styrofoam insulation. You may be able to just get some pipe insulation, if you choose this option make sure you completely cover all exposed copper piping. copper pipe transfers temperature very rapidly, so even if you leave a small portion uncovered, it can still freeze if it gets a draft.

Seal the insulation with duct tape. If you’re only having a freezing problem in certain areas, chances are this is the best place to start looking for drafts from the foundation. expanding foam or some type of silicone caulk will fill most cracks or holes.

It may also be easier to do this from the crawl space as it will be easier to see light coming in from the outside. Get a pair of coveralls and something you can push around to lay on and fill them in.

Good luck.

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Water was leaking all over the bathroom floor. I took off the toilet and there was water to the top of the hole. Roto Rooter says that since the other toilet/bathroom is working fine, it must be a frozen pipe where the toilet drains. What can I do to remedy this quickly?

Thanks for any suggestions!

You need to get some heat on the pipe to begin to thaw it out. I am assuming that the pipe is cast iron? Cast iron pipe will crack under the expansion of the ice if it has not done so already. Some soil pipes run on the outside of the home, BAD IDEA, but easy to heat.

I would say that the problem is somewhere close to the toilet in question and was most likely clogged before it froze up. Try a blow dryer from the top side and soak up the thawed ice as you go. It.s not going to easy and it will be messy but if you’re lucky the pipe didn’t crack and you’ll be back running soon.

Check to see if the pipe is getting into a draft from outside someplace. If it is outside then you can wrap it or box it in when it gets warmer outside. Usually drain pipes won’t freeze since they don’t have standind water in them and are usually empty. Thats why I think it was already clogged.

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