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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Defrosting and  Protecting Pipes

Exposure to temperatures below 20 degrees can cause pipes to freeze and break. A few simple steps can help protect pipes from freezing or defrost them when they do.

Duration : 0:2:50

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How to fix a busted, frozen, broken, copper water pipe. Part 1

How to fix a frozen, busted copper water pipe. www.poormansfix.com

Duration : 0:8:16

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Has it frozen before? Otherwise check to make sure the well pump breaker is on and that the main valve by the pressure tank is also on.

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The standard distance is 18 to 24 inches and you can put fine gravel around it for drainage

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To view video, click on the post title

With temperatures expected to plunge into the teens Wednesday night, crews with the city-county water authority are expecting to get very busy with frozen pipes.

Duration : 0:2:1

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You let a small trickle run. Of course it would be better to just have the plumber or electrician install some heat wire on the water pipe in the outside wall and crawlspace. It does require cutting open the wall a little to put it in, but so does fixing a busted pipe. The wire is then hooked up to a thermal link and it will come on just a little when the air outside gets cold!

You can also open the wall and install some insulation around the pipe – on the outside so the pipe still gets heat from the interior of the house, just less cold from outside. Interior pipes should be OK and drains have some composting heat in them. so they do not freeze. Cold water pipes freeze before hot water pipes.

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Try opening the drain valve at the bottom of the water heater, if you get a forcefull flow of water, the frozen pipe is between the tank and the fawcet. You will need to trace the pipe to the nearest fawcet and if that fawcet doesn’t work, the frozen part is between those 2 locations. The pipe could be frozen where it goes through outside walls. Its hard to tell if it has burst, it depends on many factors, so make sure you know where the shut off valve is, you might need it ina hurry !

Added: There is one thing I just noticed that is a little ambiguous about your question. If water is coming out of the hot fawcet, but it is not hot, it is most likely a water heater problem. The way your question was worded, it made it appear that no water at all was coming from the fawcet which would be a frozen pipe issue.

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Cold works but hot does not…Hmmmm strange but maybe hot is in exterior wall and cold is not. If all else fails try turning loud music with alot of bass on for a few minutes directed at the wall where pipes exist. Believe it or not this actually worked for me on accident after many agonizing hours of trying to defrost the pipe using heaters.

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A Syncon Homes Construction Defect – Frozen Shower Pipes

Syncon Homes is the company that built our defective house. We are the unfortunate buyers of their house, but we are not representing ourselves as Syncon Homes or Syncon Homes’ employees. Nor are we ociated with them or any of their affiliates in any way.

Syncon Homes built this house with many serious construction defects, code violations and violations of their own building plans. One defect is the water pipes that freeze in our bathroom each winter. That is what we’ve shown on this video. After viewing our video, feel free to stop by our website for more information about the construction defects and how Syncon Homes has treated us. We believe that you’ll find it shocking.

Our website can be reached at: http://www.asynconhome.info We will also be adding other videos to show many other defects found in this house built by Syncon Homes. It’s just a matter of time and the weather. In the meantime, we’ll reveal that there are quite a few construction defects in this Syncon Homes house that have been catagorized as “HEALTH-SAFETY HAZARDS” & “FIRE HAZARDS.”

These are some of the defects that we will be showing in subsequent videos. Again, please take a detour over to our website at: http://www.asynconhome.info It’s a site that we think you should read, especially if you’re considering a house built by Syncon Homes.

Duration : 0:4:56

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