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G

Greenie67

Hi, New to this forum and looking for any advice anyone can offer please, as we are now at a total loss as to what could be causing our supply problem.

Basically, we have no water supply to the house. This started on Tuesday 21st Dec, when temps reached minus 15. I went through all the usual options, i.e. heating pipes, putting hot air into the air space under the floorboards, pouring hot water onto the pipes. 7 days on we still have no water, even though it has been quite mild for the last 3 days. Couple of neighbours also lost their supply, but they managed to get theirs thawed out by last Thursday, by going through the same methods I applied.

Water company came out today and checked mains supply from the street, and that is running fine. Plumber also came out and confirmed that we have no water coming in from the main pipe. He took the internal stop tap off and there was no water there.

We are at a loss now as to what has happened to our water. Everyone I have spoken to reckons that even if the pipe was originally frozen, it should have started to thaw by now, but we havent even had a drip from our taps since this started. The problem is obviously between the stopcock in the street and the stop tap in the house. Any suggestions as to what else could be causing this would be much appreciated as we are getting increasingly frustrated.

Thanks for any advice - all suggestions welcomed.
Ian
 
Glad you are now getting water, my toby valve got broke whilst trying to find the problem, Scottish water came and fixed it today, but alas still no water, the workmen still recon the main pipe from the toby to the house is still frozen :(, they tried pouring hot water down the toby, but no joy, I may try some more hot/warm water tomorrow, if that does not work, then it's the waiting game like everyone else.

I am also in a newish house, 7 year old, toby not deep enough.
 
we had the same problem last year, phoned the water board they were determind the pipes in the house had frozen which they wernt as i had tested all that. they then came out and it turned out the pipe from the main line to our stoptap in the pavement had frozen due to not being deep enough, they moled a new pipe across deeper down and this year not a problem.

hope everyone without water gets it sorted soon i know how you are feeling as we were without it for a week and a half.
 
Got calledout to a similar problem yesterday, They have had everyone out to see this and none of them including water board where the wiser, Neighbours where fine and the water board claimed water was running fine. I removed the stop tap and no water, I checked the external and turned it off and on to see if i could hear anything, Anyway heres how i fixed the problem. I turned the external stop tap OFF, i then returned to the house and removed the stop tap, i could clearly see there was no water, i tried to syphon but nothing. I boiled a kettle and totaly scolded my hands so i reccommend wearing gloves, Anyway i poured the boiling water down the pipe, it didnt take long until the water came to the top. I left went home and said id return in a couple of hours, When i returned noticed the level had dropped and there was also water on floor, connected stop tap, went outside and turned on external and hey presto !!! water.... could of been big coincidence
 
No, I think you have a good idea, if the pipes under the drive or concrete foundation have frozen water inside and the ground temp is only slowly rising, the cold ground is acting like a giant freezer bag, I am going to try thawing the ground around my driveway from the toby, I emptied the warm bath water down the freshly dug hole around the toby, and down my inclined path, following the line of the blue mains pipe, I will throw any warm water down and also wash both cars tomorrow as well, in the hope that the warm water perculates down and thaws the ground/pipe out.

On a side note, if your wondering how I got managed to fill a bath, my neighbour was good enough to provide me water via his garage tap connection to mine, via a hoselock adapter, this is reverse filling my pipes, thus enabeling me to run all my indoor taps/appliances as normal, (all being lower pressure) so if you have a friendly neighbour with water, it would be worth asking, as our home can function near normal.

Cheers
 
Well it may just be good luck, but after giving my drive a bath last night, my water started running during the night :D, slight leak at the valve under the sink, but a quick tighten of the nut sorted this.

Good luck to everyone else, and for the record, that was seven days my water was frozen, I also measured the toby depth, only 360 mm from drain cover to valve, I am contemplating contacting NHBC, to see if they will cover mis-installed pipework, not hopefull though, as they have been as good as useless with everything else.

Cheers
 

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