Here’s a possiblity that you might try, if all these other suggestions don’t work.
Attach a lead from an electric welder to the pipe at the well, and then attach the other lead to the pipe inside the house, and send a current thru it to melt the frozen water. If the pipe inside the house is PVC, then you need to attach the lead to a metal rod (something like an electrical grounding rod) that is inserted right into the water in the pipe. This won’t work as well as it would with metal pipes, but just maybe the water itself would be conductive enough to complete the circuit. (Remember, it doesn’t have to be a good conductor – a poor conductor wastes electricity as heat, and that’s just what we want here.) It’s worth a try, at least.
I know it works for frozen metal pipes up here in Minnesota. I’ve had it done twice in 20 years. They disconnect my water meter, connect a lead there and the other one to a fire hydrant 4 houses away. Takes about 15-20 minutes of current to melt it. But that’s entirely thru metal pipes. We don’t have PVC pipes coming into the house – they’re not allowed here.
And you’re probably right that it’s freezing underneath the driveway. Mine freezes under the sidewalk in front, probably because the ground slopes down so that at that point the pipe is probably about 3 feet closer to the surface, and also the sidewalk is shoveled bare, while the rest of the ground is covered with 2-3 feet of snow providing additional insulation. Not sure what you could do for a permenant solution,though. My solution is to leave a faucet running just a bit during the times it’s most likely to freeze. A bit wasteful of water, but much less expensive than having a welder out to thaw out the pipes.
My plumber friend suggested something like his hydraulic snake which is a high pressure hose with a three orifice nozzle on the tiip. It is inserted in a clogged or stopped up pipe and threaded through to the clog of stoppatge. H high pressure pump then forces water through the jet nozzles at the tip. Cuts through roots, paper, seqage, and ice. Warm water would hasten the action.
You can even buy smaller & shorter versions to attach to the sink faucet to clean out sink drain lines up to something like ten to fifteen feet.
I agree with the folks that say the pipe is probably cracked but here’s what I’d do in this situation;
At a point within the house that offers a straight piece of pipe between me and the L, I would cut the pipe and thread a piece of nylon or teflon hose down the pipe until it stopped at the ice. If I thought that the ice was 40 or 60 feet from me I could compare that to the hose I’ve fed into the hole.
At the cut end of the pipe I would assemble a cheap, low volume pump, a 5 gallon bucket and a bucket heater. If you are not familiar with a bucket heater, it is similiar to a water heater element and is used to heat water in buckets for folks with crafts that demand water when it’s cold outside like masons mixing mortar. It may have another name, but that’s what we call 'em 'round 'ere.
Okay, arrange, attach and connect everything above to have the bucket heater heating water in the bucket while the pump sits in the bucket and pumps the hot water through the hose to the ice. The water melts the ice and is forced back to the cut end of the pipe.
If you can place the bucket under the cut the water will drain back into the bucket to be reheated and re-pumped. If putting the bucket beneath the cut is impossible you can dry fit some PVC fittings and pipe to the cut end to drain the water into the bucket. Just thread these fittings over the hose before it’s attached to the pump. Make sure that any fittings you attach to the cut end are not glued so that you can seperate the connection to help with feeding the hose.
If you leave enough slack in the hose to allow for the total length of the ice blockage the hose can be pushed further into the pipe so that it is always directing the hot water right into the ice.
If the water drains too fast a P-trap can be fitted to the end of the cut to make the water fill the pipe before draining.
I’d start this job in the morning and monitor the process every now and again.
Thanks, Soisi… That’s pretty much my suggestion as well. He says it’s the third time with this pipe… Thanks to all, I’ll be showing this thread to my friend Monday night.
