On 2010-12-30 13:56:03 +0000, TheOldFellow said:

My previous thread about my frozen supply pipe elicited no helpful
suggestions, frankly just as I expected. There just isn't any way to
thaw out a pipe in the ground.

So now it's 4 days later, and the air temperature here has been above 4
for all that time, even at night, and most days above 6. Pits dug
around the garden in the likely places have not found the pipe yet, but
do confirm that the ground is NOT frozen now - at any depth.

I've checked that the stopcock in the road is OK, and that there is
nothing impeding flow at the house. The pit was full of ice on Monday,
but has been clear since I cooked that out with boiling water.

Does anyone know how long it will take to thaw a pipe, or does this
sound like a 'hire a digger' job?

Much appreciate some help on this, as watching SWMBO with the bucket of
her head going to the village pump is getting boring.

R.

Can't remember if I replied to your previous thread.

I've had a rising main, in an outbuilding, freeze this year.

At first I thought it froze in an inspection pit (before the rising
main in the outbuilding), so left an oil filled radiator in sad pit on
for 24 hours. Didn't solve the problem (presumably because it wasn't
frozen there).

I moved on to the outbuilding. This rising main basically comes out of
concrete in plastic then a stopcock, with 22mm copper pipe up into a
more insulated/very slightly heated room above. Half-way up is a tap.
Turning the tap on yielded no water. So I brought the above radiator
and sat it next to where the rising main comes out of the ground,
surround it will polystyrene (could have used some kingspan off cuts)
and left it.

About 2 hours later I got a small amount of water out of the tap - as
presumably the water above ground had thawed and was coming back down
the pipe. About an hour after than the whole thing had flawed.

So, can you try long concentrated heat where the pipe comes out of the ground?