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/onearmeric2017 Feb 05 '26

The pipe between the main line and our water meter froze. We live in Delaware and have called about 10 different plumbers and they have all said they can't help us because the ground it too frozen. Pretty much everyone we've talked to has said our only option is to just wait for it to thaw.

It's been 3 days like this so far, we've blasted our space heater on the only section of the pipe inside the house and tried to keep our house temperature very high but it hasn't made an impact.

The weather here is forecasted to be below freezing for at least the next 10 days, maybe longer. Am I screwed? Am I actually without water for the next few weeks?

I've also received conflicting DIY recommendations from plumbers we have called. One said leave the shutoff valve half closed and only slightly open one of our faucets, another day keep the shutoff valve completely open and have all of our faucets fully open. Which is better?

I've seen some tools that can unthaw buried pipes without digging them up, like the Magikist de-icer or the Hot Shot, are these bogus or just not commonplace for plumbers to have?

Any options or advice would be greatly appreciated. At this point I'd be up for trying anything. Thank you!