Cold weather tips: Stopping your pipes from freezing

lilybarlean wrote: »

My 81 year old mother is afraid to turn on the gas central heating as her water went off yesterday. Everyone on her terrace has no water. The downstairs toilet has no water but the upstairs one does. I'm guessing that this is coming from the tank in the attic while the downstairs one is coming from outside. How many litres approx does a tank hold? She's afraid to flush the upstairs toilet too much in case she uses all the water in the tank. Also, she's afraid to turn on the central heating as she thinks that the radiators are taking water from the tank and the house will blow up! Can somebody disprove this? She has a wood burning stove that she's using for heat but its only heating one room and she needs her warmth.

The radiators are a closed system AFAIK so there's no worries there.
As for the loo, to conserve water you could fill a couple of plastic containers with water and slip them in the toilet cistern. That'll reduce the amount of water used by the flush.

long_b wrote: »

The radiators are a closed system AFAIK so there's no worries there.
As for the loo, to conserve water you could fill a couple of plastic containers with water and slip them in the toilet cistern. That'll reduce the amount of water used by the flush.

Your C/H is not an entirely closed system...some water does escape.
The 2 common types are pressurised or else topped up with a fill and expansion tank...the latter would be the "leakier" one.

If you have a look into her attic and see two tanks...one significantly smaller than the other she has Fill and expansion tank...keep an eye on this for her...the level will rise and fall in this as the water expands/contracts...once there is some water in this she will be OK.
In any case there SHOULD be a PRV on her system should the pressure get too high in her system.

Tell her to turn on the heating.

Right back to defend the light bulb crap!!
A 100W bulb will not heat your attic in the slightest...we are currently experiencing -10C...your light bulb is of no use to you...lagging and insulation over the lagged pipes is whats required.
Marty.

lilybarlean wrote: »

My 81 year old mother is afraid to turn on the gas central heating as her water went off yesterday. Everyone on her terrace has no water. The downstairs toilet has no water but the upstairs one does. I'm guessing that this is coming from the tank in the attic while the downstairs one is coming from outside. How many litres approx does a tank hold? She's afraid to flush the upstairs toilet too much in case she uses all the water in the tank. Also, she's afraid to turn on the central heating as she thinks that the radiators are taking water from the tank and the house will blow up! Can somebody disprove this? She has a wood burning stove that she's using for heat but its only heating one room and she needs her warmth.

Be careful with flushing the toilet upstairs, it's probably running off the tank and if you have a gravity fed system (cold water in attic, with hot water cylinder usually below) and you don't want to drain the cold water tank and turn on the emersion heating... If you have this, you can top up the tank in the attic with a hose and this is usually grand, a few of my neighbours who's pipes have frozen are doing this.


Martyc has pretty much covered the radiator problem.

lilybarlean wrote: »

Erm.. I don't think I can get into the attic with a hose pipe! Where would I take the water from? the tap in the bathroom which is coming from the tank in the attic anyway? Not a runner I'm afraid! :eek:

He means if your mains is OK but the mains supply to the attic tank is frozen, then run a hose from your mains(eg cold water tap in kitchen) to top up your tank.
Marty

lilybarlean wrote: »

Sorry, but still can't see myself running a hose from any tap up into the attic! :rolleyes: Our mains is frozen (according to the council). Tank in attic is ok. I'm too old to be foostering around up there however!

Well if your mains is frozen there really would be no point!!!

anigheh wrote: »

I'm looking for some help so far our water supply has not frozen but our waste pipe from the bath seems to be frozen we tried the hairdryer trick as there is only a couple of feet of exposed pipe outside before it feeds to the other pipes that take waste from the bathroom, with no success any help or ideas out there????

If you're sure the other pipes are clear (and they will be bigger diameter after the join, so less chance of freezing) then try pouring boiling water over the section you think is frozen. However if the frozen section is under your bath this won't work for you. Try pouring salt into the bath outlet, this can unfreeze ice in the drain trap, if that's where it is. This won't happen very quickly, so don't stand there waiting for it to clear!

Incidentally ... are you sure the problem is ice? Bath drains block for other reasons so try a plunger first if you have one in the house.

Cheers,

lilybarlean wrote: »

Oh dear, that's about 25 flushes so. Bugger.

Have you a McDonalds nearby?...:D

Frozen pipes this morning, brother came and fixed it somehow with a hair dryer. Next week he's going to beat steorn to free energy.

martyc5674 wrote: »

How do you expect the heat generated from a 100W bulb to heat your attic sufficiently to prevent the temp dropping below zero?????

Doesn't sound like it would work I know, but it actually does. We had a light on in our attic last night (outside temp got down to -13C) and no frozen pipes.

In the grandparents house next door there was no light in the attic and this morning all the pipes were frozen solid, and on top of that they were all insulated! Luckily when they thawed (eventually, after having a rake of heaters on for hours) none of them were burst or leaking so it was a lucky escape. The attic had only been freshly insulated in October, rockwool put around the water tank as well and even still it froze. Hard to believe that a light bulb would make any difference but it does!;)

vincenzolorenzo wrote: »

Doesn't sound like it would work I know, but it actually does. We had a light on in our attic last night (outside temp got down to -13C) and no frozen pipes.

In the grandparents house next door there was no light in the attic and this morning all the pipes were frozen solid, and on top of that they were all insulated! Luckily when they thawed (eventually, after having a rake of heaters on for hours) none of them were burst or leaking so it was a lucky escape. The attic had only been freshly insulated in October, rockwool put around the water tank as well and even still it froze. Hard to believe that a light bulb would make any difference but it does!;)

You will probably find in this case that there are other factors. Like your grandparents house has insulation between the upstairs level and attic, keeping the heat out of their attic, whereas yours doesn’t have insulation. In this case heat from your house heats the attic space and stops pipes from freezing. Another possibility is they don’t heat the upstairs level as much as you do!

Jut to put this 100w light bulb thing into prospective, a standard 100w incandescent light bulb gives off 90w of heat and 10w as light. While this might be enough to heat a tiny loft space just slightly bigger than your tank by 1 or 2 degrees, it won’t make any difference for a normal loft space twice the size of your living room.
Heat rises anyway, so any heat produced by the bulb will rise and spread out before escaping. The bulb would need to be below or right beside the pipes / tank to make any difference, obviously a fire and electrocution hazard.
My living room, well insulated modern built, is a lot better insulated than the standard attic. I use two 2kw (2000w equivalent to 22 100w bulbs) heaters to heat it. If I switch off one heater in the current climate the room starts to get colder:( What hope does a 100w bulb have of keeping it above freezing? Be realistic.

IMHO you should follow the suggestions from martyc5674 (most likely a plumber ), lag and insulate. Don’t expect this to be a magic solution though. If the water in your pipes is stagnant and the surrounding temperature is below freezing, it’s only a matter of time before your pipes freeze. Insulation and lagging only slow the heat escape from the pipes. If you reckon the temperature up there is below freezing, get some heat up there! Electric/blow heater (on good quality 2kw+ rated extension lead) pointed towards the pipes/tank, or as suggested earlier, opening the hatch or door to the attic will help, as long as the attached room is heated of course :rolleyes:

mollzer wrote: »

My kitchen cold water tap hasnt had water since Wed evening ! and I had left the bathroom cold tap dripping that night but somewhere the mains pipes have frozen.......and we no longer have water in the house we are renting.....conserving plenty of water now!

That was the mistake you made. You did not realise that once your cold kitchen tap stopped your mains was frozen. Running your tap at this time was a total waste.

JOJOC wrote: »

Hi wondering if anyone can help me,

My washing machine is in a concrete shed out my back garden, we have a pipe running from the house out to it, it has frozen up so now we cant use the washing machine - any suggestions as to what to do?

Cheers

Your best bet is to run a garden hose until the thaw. You will need to buy fittings and you will need to run the hose from about 10 -3 to stop it freezing. You will need to empty it EVERY day after you are finished.

We have no water for 2 days now. On a friendly neighbour builder's advice we poored loads of boiling water on the outside stopcock. It did seem to defrost it but still no water and it emptied the tank in the attic (it worked for his house next door during the week). Am I right in saying that the mains goes to the kitchen sink before going to the attic? If so, as our kitchen tap isn't working I know that the problem is outside.