Frozen Water Pipes - help and solidarity

[JMAngel1]

It's -5 here in NW and our water pipes have frozen. Yesterday it was just the hot taps but today it's all taps. DH has been around to try to locate but no visible frozen pipe - they are mostly hidden under floorboards/ walls.
Plumber has no solutions - we just have to wait for it to thaw apparently - temperature warming up to above freezing on Sunday!
We've got the heating on round the clock since this happened - I've turned the smart meter to face the wall as I can't look at it - it reached £16.78 yesterday.

Anyone else in this boat? Any tips or just solidarity?

Mine is the same! Woke up this morning at 8am and turned on the hot water tap, not one drop of water came out!. Tried the shower hot water tap and kitchen but nothing. Only cold water working.
Boiler water all day and poured on the pipes, went to screwfix and bought pipe insulators etc and still nothing :/ not wanting to call out a plumber as I don't know they can do anything different!
Just got to leave my heat on all night

We have this same issue since last night! Was -9 here in Cambridgeshire.
Nothing coming out of hot taps at all and washing machine doesnt work, just shows error code. No heating in utility though so it has just frozen up I think.
Thankfully heating is working. I don't really get why it's just the hot water that seems to be the problem?

We used to have this in our last house.
The pipe into the house on the back wall would freeze. The trick was to put a tea towel in hot water and then wrap it around it. Luckily we had a hot water tank so we had plenty of hot water.

More frozen pipes in the NW here too

Hot water taps are running but one of the cold ones has frozen and loo isn't refilling so that must be affected too.

Just going to keep the heating on for the next 24-48 hours and wait for the thaw with crossed fingers. As a PP said, it's eye watering but cheaper than a plumber. Hope it works!!

Woke up this morning to no heating, boiler condensation pipe had frozen! Froze again this evening. Luckily its right next to our kitchen window so able to put the hairdryer on it! We are South East so never really had anything freeze before! Our heating is on pretty much all the time so not really much we can do! Praying it doesn't go again during the night!

This happened to us today too; although we managed to unfreeze them. It was miserable until we worked out that was the problem… and I was utterly lost for a bit, when I was calling plumbers who were fully booked 🥴

I hope you all manage to solve the problem soon!

Minus 5 still here 🥶

Roll on the big thaw!

-10 here again this morning!

Cold pipe frozen again. Operation hairdryer in progress for a second day running.

For those of you who have successfully located your frozen pipes, where were they?
Getting desperate!

LER83 So glad for you that you can reach pipe with hairdryer - not much fun as you can't predict when it's going to happen. My DMs not in that position. I don't know what the solution is. It happened a few years ago to DM and engineer put industrial lagging on the pipe, but that hasn't helped this time.

I have no idea where, specifically, ours is frozen either OP! I would be at it with the hairdryer if I could find it

It’s so frustrating isn’t it. I’ve even been waving the hairdryer at the walls!

our condensing pipe goes up into the attic and out into the guttering - it froze one year and the water from it came thru the bedroom ceiling, so now when its forecast very cold weather i put a tub under the boiler and put the pipe into that, just means emptying the bucket once a day which is a lot less traumatic

such a silly set up and i keep meaning to re-route it into the bathroom instead...

RedToothBrush

There realistically isn't much we can do to insulate it because of how short the pipe outside is (it just goes straight to the tap).

If you don't mind it looking a bit untidy, you could cover it with builder's foam filler. It's an aerosol can. You may need to cut a bit of carboard out, to shape, to support it, as it sets.

Put it at the bottom, if you have a vertical bit.

As a veteran of frozen and then burst pipes, I get the impression that modern copper ones are much less likely to burst than the old lead ones. Water expands when it freezes and copper can bend a bit to accommodate that, while lead just split.

I woke up in the night absolutely boiling, convinced I had caught goodness-knows-what. Turns out the radiators were all really hot and I assumed the frost-stat in the loft had over-ridden the thermostat. I was panicking about the gas bill as I don't think the heating went off all day yesterday and we were sweltering. But it's probably cheaper than all the piping and tanks in the loft freezing. Tonight I think I'll leave the trap door open, hoping warming the loft quicker will be cheaper than keeping the whole house hotter than the sun. And more comfortable.

So much for trying to keep the bills down.

I know - I can’t look at our Smart meter - I’ve turned it round to face the wall. Got heating on 24/7. Tbh, it’s not even that warm downstairs - still need a dressing gown on over my clothes. We have a very heat inefficient house it seems 🥶

Same here. Heating has been on for 24 hours solid and we have now reached the lofty heights of 15 degrees. Smart meter unplugged

I was in by myself today and kept it at 16°. I was wearing a fleece and going about doing little jobs. I had to put it on when my wife came back, then set a fire in the wood burner.

Our condensate pipe froze overnight, spent the day sitting in bed with heated sheet, heated throw, hat, scarf, coat and slippers on because it was so bloody cold.

Luckily it thawed out by about 5pm but now I am getting a cold and feel awful 🤧

I’ve been told the same by several plumbers - just wait until it thaws…… Second day of no water and no flushing toilet.Also have disabled son. Really stressed and fed up as no idea how long this will go on for

We kept the heating on for 24 hours and ours had magically thawed by the end of yesterday, despite it still being sub-zero outside

Heating has been on again overnight but I haven't been brave enough to leave my bed and check whether it has frozen again yet

@FancyFelix
Ours has thawed too!!! I was screamjng running around the house checking all the taps - my DDs thought I was crazy!
Now it's raining here - I have never been so pleased to see rain in my life! Going to reach the dizzying heights of 3 degrees today - think I might put my bikini on 😅

😂

All thawed out, never did I imagine feeling so excited to see water draining away.....

Our hot bathroom taps not working this morning minus 4 outside