h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The outgoing pipes froze Sunday morning. In the middle of this past night, the toilet baked up, overflowed, and flooded the heating vents where the furnace sends heated air through my house. I spent some exhausting hours dipping water out of the vents with a one-cup measure. There's still an inch of water down there, but the air can at least get through to heat the place.

I'm still waiting for a plumber to come and heat the pipes further down so I can get rid of all this unneeded water, which is stored for now in the bathtub...

The day after Christmas (2014), our water heater decided to empty itself around the basement - with a steady feed still coming from town lines until I discovered the mess. Fortunately, I have a small wet/dry vacuum that I have used after minor construction. Still, able to collect maybe 2/3 of an Imperial gallon at a time, it took ages to get most of the nearly 40 gallons that was free-wandering.

My point is, such a small device would be ideal for clearing most from forced-air heating vents ... though the tub or out a back door would still involve a lot of carry and dump time.

I've never had a frozen pipe in my house, but my mobile home once had four burst pipes, because they're all exposed on the underside of the mobile. Luckily they're accessible for replacement.

Not so luckily, the mobile is English, where they use metric pipe measurements while Irish standard is still imperial although they call it metric. So there's a tiny difference in the size of the pipes and I had to fit about 8 converters.

>>Irish standard is still imperial although they call it metric<<

Could you explain that, Gnomon? Seriously, I'm interesting in how they do that. It sounds like a unique approach that might offer possibilities for the USA.

Sorry about your pipes, Paul. I know how that happened - you were a few degrees colder than we were, even. We're talking -16C here the other day, folks.

Saturday and Sunday mornings, we were around the -16F - after such a mild and wet winter, the frost was driving deep and fast. I could hear the earth popping and cracking ... And that is the sort of stuff that can hit shallow water and sewer lines quick and hard.

I just got an email that said, 'Prayer for missionaries has been cancelled for today.' (It's still snowing here.)

I wrote back, 'That's okay. We'll pray for them from where we are.'

The good news is that, as of an hour ago, the frozen pipe thawed and is now open and ready for business.

I've scooped out 2/3 of the water that was in the heating vents. There's less than an inch of water there, and I can get at least half of that out by the end of the day. The rest may just have to evaporate, as not much water comes up with each scoop.

No pipes have cracked, so I don't have that to worry about.

Cool old Guy just obvious
" perhaps?"

Irish pipes are called "12mm" but they are actually half-inch which is 12.5mm.

British plumbing was all changed to 15mm years ago.

12.5mm and 15mm pipes look the same but they are slightly different and not interchangeable.

It's actually worse than that. Irish pipes are 12.5 internal diameter, 14.7mm diameter external. That's an imperial standard.

British is 15mm external diameter. This is why the two look the same. But that 0.3mm makes all the difference.

I hate engineering like that, the 'put the dot between the 'i' and the 'e' if you're not sure which come first' system.

I had a problem with nuts and bolts miscalibrated that way some years back where someone was apparently trying to split the difference between metric and USA measures.

The parts supplier subsequently went out of business.




Using lye to open a frozen drain, sprinkle it gradually into a flowing stream of hot water.

Dump it all at once and especially if the drain is sluggish, it can form a hard cake in the u-joint it has to go through before entering the drain.

Lye generates a lot of heat when disolving.

Salt does the reverse, will make the pipes colder.

Hey, good advice! And thanks for the explanation, Gnomon.

My dad diddn't 'do' metric. And he was a licenced civil engineer who designed major projects - even some abroad.

Which means, I suspect, that that bridge US Steel built near Mt Ararat is a monument to US engineering stubbornness...

This was the guy who once turned in an astronomy homework assignment - a scale drawing of the solar system - calibrated in feet and inches.

Topic drift from my overflowing toilet to Mount Ararat [Noah's flood?] in just 12 posts surely sets a record for speed.

I'm not sure how metric measurements fit in. But, yes, if you're going to use one system or the other, get it right. Splitting the difference between Metric and the old English system of measurements can't possibly end well

I do not remember the last time, I have experienced burst water pipes but I think it may be some time in the 70's. I know what it's like to have a flooded bathroom, II have also had a flooded kitchen) but that was not due to frozen pipes but my upstairs neighbour's blocked pipes as I am in a maisonette flat and there is one plumbing/drainage system for upstairs and downstairs apartment flats. I find the worst part about having a flood is getting rid of the excess water, which can't be easy for you Paul, especially when you are experiencing such cold temperatures.

If the animals start moving into your place in pairs, Paul, be very afraid. After all, there will eventually be a spring thaw...

And if they do come a knocking - keep reminding the ...

Two - ONLY two !!!

"the worst part about having a flood is getting rid of the excess water, which can't be easy for you Paul"

I used the bathtub as a temporary holding place for water until the pipes thawed.