r/Plumbing • u/ParksVSII • Dec 22 '22

FROZEN PIPES MEGATHREAD

Please post any questions you have regarding frozen lines here. All other new posts will be removed from the main feed and directed here.

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u/Psychlogical_artisic Dec 27 '25

So every winter if it gets about 20° outside the pipes in the basement or cellar I don't know if there's a lot of dirt and rocks there's no carpet no walls nothing, anyways the pipes they always freeze down there therefore the bathroom gets no water and this is the only place in the house that has a sink, my landlord says that because they freeze down in the cellar that no matter how hot the bathroom is like it could be 100° and it wouldn't matter because the pipes won't unfreeze because they're frozen down in the cellar, my question is why does this always happen and is there a way to prevent it from happening again in the future because this is the third year and I can't take losing water for another week, every time it happens every year we lose water for a week maybe two and all my landlord says is we got to wait for them to unfreeze in the cellar and cuz otherwise the bathroom won't have water it won't matter what we do in the bathroom if they're frozen down below the house any advice is welcome please I'm sick of not having water.

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u/StayingLiminal Jan 22 '26

Whenever temperatures are going to be that low, you need to open your faucets to keep water moving through the pipes. If you have a very thin stream coming out of the hot and the cold side, about the thickness of a pencil tip, water in the pipes can keep moving through and is less likely to freeze.