Frozen Pipes - No water from Mains - Central Heating

Qbom

Hi,

Can anyone help me please ? Is it OK to continue to run oil central heating when the main water supply to the house has frozen ? We have ten people arriving tomorrow for Christmas - its going to be cold without the heating ! Thanks for any info.....

Outkast_IRE

Yes it should be fine , there should be a set amoiunt of water in the system and should only need new water on a infreqent basis.
If its an open system then you will have a small tank in attic with a little reserve of water as well.
If its a closed system just check pressure guage is at ok level.

Qbom

just down from attic,tank is there so I'm goin to switch it on, thank you for your help. Is there any signs I should look out for telling me that I should switch it off again ?

bauderline

If the water level should run low in your rad system the boiler should just cut out before it overheats... I think you should be safe enough...

I really can't see this being a problem unless your rads are leaking all over the place... and if they are you have bigger issues than a frozen water mains !!

P.

JamesM

Certainly use you central heating, it is quite safe. Make sure you keep the house warm and do not let the pipes in the house freeze, or they may burst.
Jim.

Joey the lips

Its a common misconception that the heating cannot be used when the mains water goes. This is not the case it can. This is one of the reasons the old systems use to have expansion tanks.

HOWEVER..... I rec not emptying the hot cylinder as the coils are quite robust normall but very delicate if the tank is empty

So essentially. Run the heating but dont empty the hot water...Infact I would not use it at all.

Qbom

thanks to everyone who's replied, heating going all day with no issues and I've switched of the water heating zone.

Anyone got any recomendations for clearing the frozen section coming from the mains ? I've tried warm water at the valve but no differnce ?

Also one of my neighbours has said running a hose from his external tap to my external tap will provide me with water... does anyone if this works ?

Thanks again...

Outkast_IRE

Joey the lips wrote: »

Its a common misconception that the heating cannot be used when the mains water goes. This is not the case it can. This is one of the reasons the old systems use to have expansion tanks.

HOWEVER..... I rec not emptying the hot cylinder as the coils are quite robust normall but very delicate if the tank is empty

So essentially. Run the heating but dont empty the hot water...Infact I would not use it at all.

The cylinder wouldnt empty its more than likely a gravity fed system so once the water in storage tank above goes then the cylinder will be left with a full amount of dead water in it , so theres no fear of that , you would need to use a drain off or something for this to happen

cattyd

saw all the posts here...great advice....was just wondering if anyone can solve the frozen water pipe issue. in a new house...no exposed pipes...neighbours working fine..seems to be just us. have some heating running near the valve under the sink but highly unlikely it will work...got 1 or 2 drops but must be underground pipe and have no access. any advice great. could be a long week otherwise!!!

Outkast_IRE

Qbom wrote: »

thanks to everyone who's replied, heating going all day with no issues and I've switched of the water heating zone.

Anyone got any recomendations for clearing the frozen section coming from the mains ? I've tried warm water at the valve but no differnce ?

Also one of my neighbours has said running a hose from his external tap to my external tap will provide me with water... does anyone if this works ?

Thanks again...

the frozen section could be anywhere on the pipe run probably not at the valve only solution is to bury it deeper come this summer or insulate it .

wax

Had exactly the same problem myself 2 nights ago and turned off the boiler also as I thought the same as yourself. I finally managed to de-thaw the pipes after getting water from neighbours and constantly pouring hot water on the exposed pipes while I left the tap on. At the moment I have the tap trickling constantly. Do the same and hopefully tomorrow during the day it will warm up enough for water to flow again. Keep the tap barely trickling till the cold weather passes.

Qbom

wax, about how many kettle fulls did it take, I poured 15 out there today with no joy !

wax

I think it took about 4 however there's only about 2 ft of exposed pipe outside my house (where it comes from the ground into the kitchen) so I guessed that was where it had to be frozen. Forgot to mention I gave it gentle taps with a hammer as I poured.

Bazzy

wax wrote: »

Forgot to mention I gave it gentle taps with a hammer as I poured.

Be Very Very gentle

AckwelFoley

Even though you may not see exposed pipes they have to be exposed somewhere enough for the frost to get at them.

If its mains water you have its likely that the exposure is at the point where the water pipe comes from the trench to the house, or is possible the pipe isnt buried deep enough, and just barely in the ground

yeahme

just come back from fixing that problem....

lukewarm water, poured where the main pipe comes into ur house, as was stated here above, the mains water is probably too high in the ground so the frost can get at it,
keep water on till it starts to melt, it might start straihg t away or might take a few bucketfuls of LUKEWARM- progressing to hot, otherwise pipe may crack and then u will have bigger problem,
if water does not flow away, make sure to take it out by cloths or whatever means necessary, otherwise water will ice over, and you are back to sq 1.
next sprinkle salt over pipes, and wrap pipe firmly with bed sheets towels or the like, and close.

long term fix, fill the area of the water mains pipe with sand so it will be hard to frost over again in the future

cattyd

our main pipe comes directly up from ground into house so nothing exposed. have no idea if it is too close to the surface, perhaps it is. At the path at the front of the house is a little manhole which relative said is the main water feed to the house. It is about a foot down and can't see any frost on it and it's a fairly hefty pipe...it's about 20 foot from the house...plumber on the phone said just have to wait for weather to thaw...nothing can be done...that's fine with me but other people say you can have burst pipes!! suppose if they under ground probably won't do any harm but if this is going to happen everytime have cold weather..yiikes...anyway, look forward to other info...it's all been helpful...here's hoping the Christmas dinner gets cooked!!!!!!!! At least we can leave the washing up!!!!!!!! Merry Christmas

Outkast_IRE

if it was me i would schedule it in for the summer to be dug up and put deeper or insulated or both

Chatterboxmoira

Hi all
I wonder if anyone can give advice to a similar problem. We found that we had frozen mains water yesterday, unfortunately we had drained the system then realised there was a problem when no more water came out. For now we are keeping the house warm with convection heaters and praying for a thaw.

Advice needed on this...
our only source of heating is an open fire with back boiler that heats the rads and hot water. Now, we know that we cannot light a fire during a power cut because water will not move around the system and could overheat. But, had we not drained the system, could we have safely lit a fire yesterday?

We can't find where the mains water is frozen, but we are the only house affected. We are in rural Cork in a traditional cottage. We had water through an outside tap until about midnight when that froze. Hindsight is a marvelous thing. Had I read this forum yesterday, I would have kept tap slightly open.

We will eventually get oil fired central heating put in- any clue about costings????

Thanking you all in advance.

items

Chatterboxmoira wrote: »

Hi all
I wonder if anyone can give advice to a similar problem. We found that we had frozen mains water yesterday, unfortunately we had drained the system then realised there was a problem when no more water came out. For now we are keeping the house warm with convection heaters and praying for a thaw.

Advice needed on this...
our only source of heating is an open fire with back boiler that heats the rads and hot water. Now, we know that we cannot light a fire during a power cut because water will not move around the system and could overheat. But, had we not drained the system, could we have safely lit a fire yesterday?

We can't find where the mains water is frozen, but we are the only house affected. We are in rural Cork in a traditional cottage. We had water through an outside tap until about midnight when that froze. Hindsight is a marvelous thing. Had I read this forum yesterday, I would have kept tap slightly open.

We will eventually get oil fired central heating put in- any clue about costings????

Thanking you all in advance.

Heating and plumbing are separate systems, if one is down, provided no major issues with other, its safe to use either.

You have a back boiler, in your attic you should have a header tank small tank for heating cold feed and heat expansion. If tank is full with water, heating system is safe to use.

Oil boilers can be anything from 700 euro up to ones well over 1000 euro. You might want to replace rads to get most out of boiler, rads avg 90 to 120 euro per room. Basic oil boiler / rad install comes in around 4000 euro ( top of head figure).

I'd hold onto back boiler if possible, oil / back boiler is a good combination once piped correctly, most cases now, I find myself using back boiler just to heat hot water. Oil heating rads.

danniemcq

Found this thread on Google, Might need a bump as i was about to ask the exact same thing here, Same Problems didn't know about central heating and mains frozen. Very annoying! must try some of these tips later though!

Thanks

rocksby

Hi, long time reader first time poster.
We have a tap out side our house with no water. The mains supply on pulic road is working for everyone else and is about 15 - 20 metres from our outside tap. Does anyone know is it safe to take tap off and then to poor hot water down the exposed pipe to melt the ice? Slightly worried it might cause the pipes to burst. This is only pipe visible outside house.
Thanks

bbam

rocksby wrote: »

Hi, long time reader first time poster.
We have a tap out side our house with no water. The mains supply on pulic road is working for everyone else and is about 15 - 20 metres from our outside tap. Does anyone know is it safe to take tap off and then to poor hot water down the exposed pipe to melt the ice? Slightly worried it might cause the pipes to burst. This is only pipe visible outside house.
Thanks

It will do no harm and most probably not work either... the bore of the pipe is so small as soon as the hot water meets ice it will stall and not go further down, it may melt a little ice but the cold water will cool the hot water and then nothing else will happen...
From what I've seen the two most likely places are at the mains stop cock or where the pipe enters the house, it is probably too shallow at either or both of these places... You could try pouring boiling water down on the stopcock for a start and pray....pray hard. Pour a few kettles down, waiting a few minutes between each one...
It's fine plumbers saying wait for the thaw... our friends waited 8 weeks last year before their water came back on !

greengreen

If the water is frozen out at road/mains, is it all right to use hot water from cylinder if you keep the main tank in attic topped up with buckets from next door neighbour?

Buford T Justice

greengreen wrote: »

If the water is frozen out at road/mains, is it all right to use hot water from cylinder if you keep the main tank in attic topped up with buckets from next door neighbour?

Yeah, but remember that when you throw a bucket of water into the tank you will stir up the dirt in it. Let it settle before you start using the water to avoid dragging it down the pipes.

Greenman

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

if it was me i would schedule it in for the summer to be dug up and put deeper or insulated or both

I wonder did the big summer dig ever happen? if it did I'm sure the relevant parties are glad:)

bugsntinas

i'm totally confused with all this.we live in rural mallow and we've had no water since last sunday and no heating.we've put the boiler on a couple of times but the rads don't heat at all where as when we have water they warm up in minutes.i can't check in the attic as there is a studwall in the way but the oil heating definately don't heat up.god it's cold in our house the bedroom window has been frozen since monday on the inside.

Coventry

Hi,

In same position as poster, no water since christmas eve, think it is to do with stopcock on road, other house holders have water. gas central heating stopped last night, house getting very cold. What should I be checking ? Should I be filling tanks in the attic, no experience of this.

Buford T Justice

There's a thaw on today so you might not have to wait too much longer. That said, if you have no water and all the rest of the street do, then try throwing a kettle of boiling water over you're stopcock outside and see if this does anything for you.

If you still have water in the tank upstairs, I wouldn't recommend using it, as it will cause all sorts of issues later on if the tank empty's

bugsntinas

bugsntinas wrote: »

i'm totally confused with all this.we live in rural mallow and we've had no water since last sunday and no heating.we've put the boiler on a couple of times but the rads don't heat at all where as when we have water they warm up in minutes.i can't check in the attic as there is a studwall in the way but the oil heating definately don't heat up.god it's cold in our house the bedroom window has been frozen since monday on the inside.

solved our problem.went into the roof and both tanks are solid ice,tapped the hot water tank in the airing cupboard and that sound very solid(ice).
how do i know this were had a burst pipe in the roof,had to cut a great big hole in the wall/ceiling so i could get up there and then no access to pipes as they're shuved into one corner behind the tanks.god knows where we go from here as we are insured with 123.ie and they have no emergency number and they're closed til wednesday:mad::mad:

Coventry

Tried boiling water, stop cock just two inches from ground level, co. council not prepared to look at situation.