Severna Park, MD · Member since 2013 · 7k+ posts · 7k+ votes
I am here in Severna Park Md , I get home early due to the cold , had enough for the day , or so I thought . I went to make a sandwich and wash my hands and low and behold , NO WATER . I start running thru the house and check everything and turn off the main . Good , no breaks , probably a broken water main , called the neighbors and they had water . Ok , we have a problem , I check the water main , the pipes are 67 degrees , I go out front and remove the water meter lid and point the thermometer at the meter and pipes . It reads 22 degrees . SOB I drive over to the shop and grab the torpedo heater , fill it with $ 50.00 of Kerosene , grab some buckets ( to flush toilets if need be) I grab scrap wood and tarps. I made a small tent to send the heat into the pit . About 35 minutes later I have water . While I am doing this 3 different neighbors have the same problem . The heater is running as I type on the last one . Leaving a faucet running tonight
FYI be cautious of leaving the faucets running. It will keep your water lines from freezing however you can get a frozen sewer line... yes, as crazy as that sounds it can and has happened.
I solved that problem , then a damn pipe burst on an exterior wall of my house , fixed that , now I have about 20 hours of snow plowing to do . Life is fun . The nice thing is this stuff doesnt bother me , its a good part of my job. Best part is materials to take care of my frozen line problems was $ 15.00 . Labor was me
We're also getting ice dam damage along the lower roof lines. We had a friend fall off a roof yesterday (not one of ours) so we are just tossing CaCl2 up onto the lower roof areas.
We will be repairing a lot of gutters this spring....
We're also getting ice dam damage along the lower roof lines. We had a friend fall off a roof yesterday (not one of ours) so we are just tossing CaCl2 up onto the lower roof areas.
We will be repairing a lot of gutters this spring....
There is a trick for that , put the calcium in panty hose , then toss them up .
Matthew Paul nice fix. I'll keep that in mind. I had a tenant call 10 days ago to tell me they had no water. I made it there in about two hours. We have no access past the water meter and the main is across four lanes of asphalt and through a train station, so I cut the main right after a shutoff and got a drip that ran to nothing. I put a pipe snake in to about 17 feet then ice. I called a few plumbers and they said see you next week- too busy and offering money got me nowhere. So I hit YouTube and found a guy that ran pex from a small pump inside the pipe to the frozen part. He had a bucket to catch the back feed that he reheated and sent back in. So I did the same. After 6 hours I had 75 feet of pex in and I got a ton of back pressure, ice cold water and victory. PIA but if anyone out there has no access to the shutoff this might work for them too. BTW my insurance agent turned me on to a company that insures waste lines and water lines back to the main for 12.99 a month. I signed up but they take thirty days to kick in.
Or address the ventilation and insulation problems in the attic and there will be no ice dam.
Every winter I'm amazed by the number of frozen pipes and sewer lines in places like Md, Tn, NC, Virginia or even Pa. Today was our first day with temperatures above freezing since early December and we just finished a month where the highs were <-17C (0F) and not a frozen pipe. I am curious as what is different between how our water & sewer are run in comparison to those of you further south.
On the other hand, we had two roofs leak today before we could get the 4' of snow off them. One roof needs replaced (we are waiting on the settlement award from a class action for defective shingles), however the other is 14 months old ... so the roofer will be by tomorrow to see what went terribly wrong and to have the discussion about who is going to cover the repair of the 14' x 23' ceiling below (not to mention the insulation, etc).
Frost line is 30 inches in Maryland , but water meters are in a vault exposed to air and mine is 18 inches below grade. Sewer lines have a 18 inch minimum depth . What I have been fixing are frozen sump pump lines , where people put them 2 inches below ground and they are frozen .
Water meters here are on the interior and frost line is 1.3 - 1.5 m (~4 - 5ft). Even sump lines here would be run a depth of at least 24" (many older houses have them plumbed into their sewer).
Might be a little late for this year....so if someone is looking at this in 2016 it works! Here is a diagram on Thawing pipes and below is a pic of my setup with electric tea kettles to warm water.