what do you do when pipes freeze?

:rant: Okay, only the hot water is working. Toliet wont flush and none of the cold water knobs work in any of my sinks. I hate winter.

Hair dryer… or mild propane heat (if Cu pipes)

Thaw slowly. keep heat away from any soldered joints. Check for leaks after thawing.

hair dryer and invest in some heat tape.

if the pipes are in a another room in the game room/basement then leave the door cracked and they wont freeze, hair dryer or propane works to unfreeze them

I am using 2 small electric space heaters near the pipes in the basement

heat tape them and let them drip once they unfreeze so they dont freeze again

^^^ what he said

I think a barowner was on TV last night from thawing his pipes with a heat gun… mainly cause it ended up setting the place on fire yesterday!

Basically what everyone else said. Propane, electric, whatever heaters. Use a blow dryer too. Get some heat tape, pipe insulation, etc in the meantime. Leave a faucet dripping once you get it to thaw.

Mine froze yesterday. Made me finish the garage heater project earlier than expected.

mine just froze right now!! luckily it was in the unfinished bathroom
but still sucks
luckily i was in house when it happened so only about 3 gallons of water on floor. so dried the floor up and shut the water off to that bathroom.

what he said, make sure u leave the faucet drip a bit!

how does dripping help against freezing? the flow of fluid i know helps keep it from freezign but dripping isnt really flowing alot of water in the pipes… if its cold enough, rivers freeeze over and they flow more than dripping pipes

heat gun to anything > *

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpipefreeze.html

it just works. I used to live with my cousin and had well water, and we had to do it every winter. Tho it probably never got this cold…burrrrrrr

yeah i figured that much…but even dripping doesnt seem to keep enough water flowing away from pipe walls… but hey if it works, it works. my guess is if it does get cold enough, like they say, drippin wont matter:)

I was lucky enough that no pipes burst.

Did you get it straightened out, Kolar?