Oops - frozen pipes

So I'm on a slab and the only water on an exterior wall is our bathroom sinks. I dripped the hot water on them last night, but not the cold. The cold line is froze up. Wife will have to brush her teeth using hot water. She'll squeeze from the middle and yell at me for it.

Can't think of anything I can do to unfreeze the cold lines except possibly warm the house. Think running cold water in other sinks will make some flow hit the line in the bathroom?

We had our house replumbed a couple years ago.

They ran a new line from the meter to the house and went in through the side of the brick.

They used PEX and told us "Oh you don't have to worry about it freezing!" which I have come to the conclusion was not an accurate statement.

This is the first time it has done it and I will be out there in a few minutes with the hair dryer trying to thaw it out...hopefully that is the only place it it frozen.

light bulb under sink, 100 watt standard bulb and check on it every so often to make sure it is not scorching anything.

oh, close the doors so it holds the heat. give it an hr. and see what ya got.

Pex will freeze, but it won’t break like copper.

My son that lives in the metroplex read a post on NEXTDOOR, where a guy said the best way to keep your pipes from freezing was to turn the water off at the meter. We both got a good laugh, I wonder how many people took his advice and have frozen pipes.
I told him to just do as we always have, a small trickle of hot and cold.

I wonder how many used droplights with LED bulbs in them as opposed to incandescent? I keep some incandescent ones here just for this purpose.

My pool equipment/piping is beginning to freeze up, there’s ice on the pool too. This is ridiculous

I did everything they say, and still my washing machine froze up in my garage. I'm guessing it's the feed line running along the bottom of the north-facing wall. All I know to do is wait until she thaws and breaks, and then fix.

Cut the sheetrock. Expose the pipe. Get some almost boiling water and but in baggie and double baggie it and sit it against the frozen pipes, it will take a few minutes and should unthaw.

fittings can break though. Also have to be careful there are 2 kinds of pex. Pex-A and Pex-B. B style can break but not as easy as copper.

These houses are not built for this type of cold. RedRanger will be busy in a few days!

This will work if you drain it down and get water out of lines....

Yes when lines start to thaw most of the plumbing issues show themselves. Ranger will be happy and us insurance adjusters will be miserable lol.

HORSE POO!!! LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE. pex will freeze and split just like copper trust me on this

Well I got a Pex problem too. Kept the faucets dripping but it froze in the attic. Been up there all morning trying to get it running but not successful. Hope that [censored] don't bust.

My hot water heater froze in the attic, no hot water. Hoping the power outages have stopped and it will thaw

If you have a dryer pull the vent line and run the dryer. I did this when I had water heater and washer dryer in garage.

I had to do that when I lost a furnace in a smaller house, electric dryer and took 3 months to pay off the dam bill but hey, no water froze at least.

you have to throw a wet towel in and keep re wetting it or the dryer shuts off too fast to do much good.

Always drip the cold line.

Had a heater under an upstairs bathroom sink all day and night - still froze up. Tried a blow dryer for 3 hours (!!!!) to no avail. It is the only one we have trouble with, but it is over an open porch.

Well now you tell me!

The line is blocked somewhere upstream of the bathroom in the garage. I've got a space heater out there, but not sure it is doing any good at all. I'm going to try running the cars for a bit and letting a couple hot engine blocks warm up the garage. See if that works.

We have not had any power since 5.30ish this morning, no telling what’s froze up and we are on a well also.

already have a plumber coming out next monday, don't see any point before then with it getting even colder over the next 2 or 3 days.

said all they are taking right now is emergency calls, they are out of bonham.

She can always did her tooth brush in the toilet.

I got the cold water thawed coming into the house but the hot water is froze.

It is probably at the Tankless Water Heater line somewhere.

I have a light on the fittings under there hoping it will thaw...but I have my doubts of it thawing before Thursday.

Friday will be a bad day for many

Yep ,the fire dept. will be answering water flow alarms for two to four days!

We were just talking about that. Them boys on C shift Friday are gonna run a bunch of those. We expect to break t he 1200 call mark in 24hrs at midnight. Its been crazy. Several structure fires, tons of EMS and the rest were alarms etc.

I'm busy as hell right now all I'm doing is turning the water off see you tomorrow Wednesday Thursday maybe Friday this is going to be really bad

Can I get my plumbers license on line before then?

I'm licensed and ready to serve

This , builder left one section supplying the kitchen and guest bath on outside wall. Trying to thaw with heater


Homestead Florida is sounding good

Toilet froze this morning, I tried the mud shark trick but wouldn't work luckily I had my harbor freight double action heat gun with the compass in the stock.

So I've cut the water off to the softener in the garage that caused the problem. Cut the water off at the main and wait for the thaw on Friday?

Sorry guys, gotta laugh a bit here,

We do have one small blockage of ice here, my Wifes bidet, newly installed with the water line though the outer wall

Okay really silly idea. Let me know if this has any prayer of working. Hot water lines are running strong and hot. Cold water line is frozen in garage, upstream of sink.

What would happen if I took the hot water line running up to the faucet and connected it to the cold water line at the wall? Bypassing the faucet and putting the hot water directly into the cold water line. Since the faucet is disconnected there would be no valve except for the shutoff valves under the sink.

I'm thinking the hot water line would energize the cold water line up to the frozen section, and it may have a chance of melting the ice.

Any chance this would work, or should I just wait until Friday?

The water tower up the street is spewing water out it’s side. I think they have a bigger “frozen” pipe than any of us. Hahaha.

That will make a nice frozen waterfall.

my water is out too, at least we have power though, so far, is there a way to tell if my pipes are frozen or if the city is having issues on their side? or both? I live in a modern brick home and supposedly have those freeze proof faucets. Not sure if that makes a difference or not in this weather?

Should I just leave the taps open to give the water in the pipes room to expand?

I stink at plumbing.

Hot water in attic out also. Have two heaters up there and can't find the frozen section. Spent four hours up there yesterday with a hair dryer to no avail. Funny thing was I carried a thermometer up there and the temp was 40. Can't figure out why it froze at that temp.

I thought we were good, my wife was in the shower for about 5 minutes, turned the flow down to wash her hair (can't figure why) and it just shut off. Her sink right by the shower works fine, hot and cold, mine 3 feet away froze on both. Put a heater under my sink as that is where the main header is behind the cabinet and got the shower back to working, my faucet will flow a small stream of hot and cold but not full flow. I think the freeze knocked some gunk off of the lines and plugged up the works. I will wait till the weather gets back to normal before I start taking thinks apart though.