We live out in the country but this story could just as easily happen to someone in the city. After 25 years of living in the same location, our water line froze on us this winter. We had a very early start to winter this year. In November the temperatures got down to single digits and we didn't have any snow. Had we had snow in combination with the cold temperatures, it probably wouldn't have been so bad. The snow tends to act as an insulator and keeps the cold from driving down into the ground. Where we live, in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Northern New Mexico, the frost line is down to about 3 ft. The conventional wisdom has always been that if your pipes are at least 3 feet deep, then they won't freeze. But, since we didn't have the snow covering the ground and, I'm thinking, since our pipes are buried underneath an area where the water often runs during run-off (out here, we call these little stream beds arroyos), there's a good chance that several inches or more of protective dirt has been washed away over time. Doesn't look like the ground level has dropped much, but it's hard to remember over time just what the ground looked like 25 years ago!
Bottom line is, our pipes froze and they froze hard. Our water line travels at least 700 feet from the well house to our home on top of the hill. By the time our line froze, we did have snow covering the ground and that made it even more difficult to deal with. I mean, where does one start when one has 700 feet of water line underground? Digging it up just didn't seem like an option. Luckily there is only my wife and I and our two dogs so we decided we would just wait it out until the pipes thawed. Don't get me wrong. I didn't just give up. I was pro-active.
I disconnected the main water line in the house, installed a union (plumbing device which allows for two pieces of pipe to be taken apart and put back together) in-line and tried running hot water back down the line - even with a small pump this didn't work, couldn't get it to push against the air block - and attached an air compressor to the line to try to blow it back out. This actually worked at one point. We had water for 4 days until we left one evening and didn't think to let the water drip to prevent another freezing! The 2nd time it froze is when we had the solid freeze that lasted for about 6 weeks and wouldn't budge, no matter what we did.
Even with our resolve to not let this situation get us down, after about a week and a half, I started to think "outside the box." It occurred to me that since we had a water hydrant down at the bottom of the driveway, just 250 feet away, that I might be able to use that to our advantage. I came up with the idea of running a hose from the hydrant up to the outside water faucet on the side of the house. Seemed reasonable enough to me, so after getting the correct adapters, I was able to do just that. During the day, as long as the temperatures were above 28 degrees or so, I was able to run the water from the hydrant up the hill and into the house. Since the outside faucet was right about where the main water line came in, the whole house system, including the hot water heater, became charged. All right! Water! At night, just as the temperatures were dropping way back down, I would have to shut down the system and drain the hoses and then, the next day, when the temperatures got back up to 28 degrees or better, I would hook the system back up.
I think this system would work in a pinch in the city or suburbs where the houses are close together. One would simply hook their hose to a neighbor's faucet until such time as the water line thawed or was other wise corrected.
I can't tell you how much this helped to ease what otherwise would have been a burden. We were able to shower, run the dishwasher, flush the toilet, do laundry and fill up bottles of drinking water, as long as we did all of the above before dark or when the temperatures plummeted. Luckily for us, February was rather mild and we were able to have many days that worked in our favor. But, it wasn't until almost the end of February that we had enough mild weather for the line to thaw.
