Freezing of water in the pipe is not pleasant phenomenon. You out of habit open a crane, and instead of a stream of water, you observe a tiny drying stream of liquid or nothing at all. Even worse, if the water pipe is freezing, but the batteries of the heating system. In this case, everything is really serious and the situation requires immediate adoption of strategic decisions. And the sooner they are undertaken, the more likely that the batteries of the heating system will not break through. After you suspected frostbite, you need to not be losing a minute to start warming up. First you need to determine the area of the frozen pipe, and then provide free access to it (remove interfering objects, remove insulation and so on). There are several ways to defrost a frozen pipe. The easiest, most famous and proven way is using hot water. This method is most practical in cases where the frozen pipe is located directly in the house and it consists in the following: the frozen area is wrapped with rags and watered with hot water (preferably boiling water) until it warms up. At the same time, it is convenient to use a kettle with a nose or, even better, bring a flexible hose to the pipe, connecting it to hot water, unless, of course, it is possible.
It is very important to water the entire frozen area completely and evenly. The method of heating with an open flame (a burner (“primus”), a torch, a soldering lamp is very effective). But at the same time, keep in mind that this method cannot be used indoors to avoid a fire and it cannot be used in heating plastic pipes. Another method is heating using heat devices (hairdryer, thermal tank (heat gun)). To do this, you need to create a closed space around the problem area with a casing or a spacious sleeve, and then heat the air in this space, directing a stream of hot air towards it. This method is not as effective and fast as the aforementioned, but, nevertheless, can help solve the problem.
It is quite reliable, although, in principle, not very fast, it is a method of warming with heating cables. In this method, a frozen pipe is wrapped with foil or special aluminum self -adhesive film. Then, over the film, the pipe is wrapped with a heating cable with a spiral and fixed with tape the resulting “structure”. So that the cable does not overheat and does not damage, the spiral’s step is at least 8-10 cm. At the same time, it is important to exclude heat loss. For this, it is recommended to lay the insulation on top of the cable.