Submitted by Foreign-Fig4974 t3_zz6twz in pittsburgh
Bathroom (sink and shower) froze, turned the water off for a few days and now have had it back on since yesterday afternoon. I’ve just been getting a constant trickle.
Is it possible that they are still frozen even with this warm weather? I don’t see any evidence of burst (discolored water, puddles in ceiling/wall/floor, bad smell, low pressure elsewhere in house).
Edit: cannot access pipes, would likely require some demo
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It's both the sink and shower? There's a chance it could be the flow restrictors clogged up with gunk. I would start there.
Okay, so this happened to us (first time homeowners in an old, poorly insulated house on a big ass hill). Our hot water froze in our bathroom. Luckily, I was able to isolate the pipes in question and spent 8 fun-filled hours on Christmas Eve half-in my drop ceiling with my hairdryer, slowly unthawing the pipes. I also had a little space heater tucked underneath the bathroom vanity.
Have you tried this method? If you know where your pipes are, try aiming a hairdryer or a space heater at them. Otherwise, might be time to call a professional.
If you have cabinets below your sinks, keep them open. Pipe can be frozen and not burst.
I'm in a similar situation. Best guess is that the service supply line from the curb is (mostly) frozen somewhere along the line. Not sure what to do besides wait a couple more days to hope it thaws as there's no easy way to access the pipes. Would love to hear if anyone else has dealt with such issues before.
That's what I'm thinking too. It's been above 50° continuously for over 24 hours now, so I don't see how the pipes could still be frozen at this point.
Yeah, the thing is that the bathroom is upstairs. Everything in the kitchen and basement works fine so it seems like probably not a water main issue? Will probably end up waiting it out for the weekend before calling plumber
You need to find where your risers and pipes run. Whatever wall they run up through, put space heater next to the wall preferably at the level or below where they are frozen. If you have direct access to pipes through a panel then a hairdryer directly on to the pipe works well. It was still freezing last night so unless your walls have incredible insulation then they could still be frozen. I had to heat my house up to 70 with multiple sources of supplemental heat to thaw my pipes. It took about 2 hours for water to start running again. I had a whole floor without water as well.
Even without the shower head, still very low flow
If you have a single handle shower valve there could be a chance that the orifices in the valve are clogged. After that I'm running out of ideas.
Try cleaning out the faucet aerator. Pipes leading to my third floor bathroom froze and had low pressure. Cleaned the aerator and it’s back to normal.
And this is the problem with the new plastic water lines. Used to be you could throw some rods down onto the line and run electrical current through them to thaw out. Not anymore.
The pipes should have thawed by now. If you are just getting a trickle, it means they have sprung a leak somewhere, probably inside the walls. Sadly, you need to call a plumber and be prepared to shell out if walls need to come down to access the pipes. Taking care of it now will be cheaper than taking care of it down the road though, after the water has had time to damage the walls.
There are heated cords you can get at Home Depot or Lowe’s that you just wrap around the pipe. They will thaw them and also prevent them from freezing in the future
Appreciate the help, cleaning the sink aerator and then the shower head ended up doing the trick! Will check out the handle valve as well
That'll be $250. Just kidding, glad to help!
I’m a little late to this one but a self-inflicted wound I once dealt with after turning off my main during an outage was that I didn’t open it back up enough. Hope you’re all set at this point but if not, check to make sure you’ve actually opened the main up enough.
[deleted] t1_j29vfn1 wrote
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