Saw a thread the other day but it did not have enough info. for my problem. Anyway, neighbor has a frozen sewer pipe (Norfolk, MA). I guess the frost line is getting pretty deep (and no real snow cover this year). What is the best way to un-freeze this pipe? Read something about a jet of hot water. Any details on this process (any special equipment)? If it is specialty equipment, anyone know of a local company to either rent or perform the work?
Just a though off the top of my head: Has anyone tried lighting a contained fire outside to try and un-freeze the area? I was thinking of a few 55gal drums with lots of scrap lumber/firewood etc. Not sure how effective this would be.
Thanks for the help in advance.
Replies
Just a thought, but you might try dumping a few gallons of environmentally friendly antifreeze down the line. You can get it at an autoparts store.
I ran into that problem a few years ago. I ended up calling Roto Rooter and they came out with a high pressure hot water gun/ snake. It was pretty messy. I don't know if you could rent one or not.
By the looks of it I would rather pay the $100 and have someone else do it, but to each his own.
I do remeber that the guy told me that one opion was to pour rocksalt down my drain but that could take awhile to work depending onwhere your line is froze.
Dave
was thinking of a few 55gal drums with lots of scrap lumber/firewood etc. Not sure how effective this would be.
Not very. Take a pretty intense fire a fairly long time to thaw out mother earth that far down. Not only is the earth an insulator, but your heat (for the most part) is headed skyward.
'Call RotoRooter, that's the name, and away goes troubles down the drain.'
Good luck. BTW, there was another thread about frozen sewer pipes a week or so ago. Maybe it would help also.
Salt is a bad idea because it will kill your septic bacteria. I am skeptical that antifreeze would work its way through an existing frozen section, and may harm the septic system as well.
Freezing a sewer pipe is uncommon because the heat from the bacterial action in the septic tank and occasional doses of warm water from typical household use is enough to keep it thawed. But, it's not unheard of for a sewer to freeze, usually when folks are away for a few weeks in the dead of winter. The standard way is the hot water jet, which is best done by someone you pay to get messy in your place.
After it's thawed, do a load of white laundry in hot water to dump a load of hot water down the line all at once to continue the warm up.
Here is the way they are doing them here, and there are freeze-ups all across the village. A gas-engine-powered pressure washer is outfitted with a "jetter" tip. The tip is a nozzle with a fine forward spray orifice and four fine rearward spray orifices, that spray out at about a 30 degree angle, and provide forward propulsion when in the pipe. The supply hose is connected to a warm water source, either from a long hose from an in-home water heater, or if not available, the plumbers fill a tank they bring on their truck, and use a torch to keep it warm in the field.
If it is done outside through a cleanout access, no recirc is required, but if the line access is inside, say, in the home's mechanical room, then recirc is required, and a small pump is used to recirc the backflow back to the source, or to pipe it outside to daylight.
Ain't an easy process to get going without the equipment, and I can't see the stuff being readily available at a rental yard.
The high-pressure line is snaked into the sewer and bumped up against the obstruction, then the warm water under pressure is begun, and the jetter tip just eats its way through the ice. Sometimes here, the ice is clear out at maybe 125 feet of hose, and the iced up section may be another 30 feet.
Thanks for the info. guys. Keep in mind this is my neighbor's house (better him than me). Anyway, when I returned home last night to give him a hand, he had jack hammer in his back yard. He was removing the frozen earth in cubes. Once the "D" box was exposed, he shot hot water into the pipes via a garden hose until the ice melted. The cubes of earth go right back in place like a puzzle (sort of).