frozen drain pipe in kitchen sink

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Well I have an odd one. The drain for my kitchen sink I think is frozen closed. The trap is under the sink in a kitchen cabinet and that area is heated of course. The drain pipe goes straight down after the trap through a crawl space and merges with the rest of the house piping leading to the septic. I do not notice any other parts of the house (on same level or above) with drainage issues.

What I think started it is I routinely take a large ice block (once its loose) from the dogs outside water bucket and put in in the sink and let it melt, refill the bucket and put it outside. I am not sure how that caused it, but I think its the problem.

I do not think there is a clog as it went from running fine to zero in a few hours when the ice block was melting.
 
That sucks. I'd hit junctions and elbows with the hair dryer, as that catches ice chips.

Throwing boiling water down there might help, too. It'll have some heat sucked out via the trap, though.
frown.gif
 
I ran water into a bucket until it was very hot, then let the faucet flow into the sink, but it did not help.

This was not ice chips, but a 12" diameter by 2" thick block of ice that was slowly melting.
 
Yeah but you'll get these semi-circular ice chip inside your pipes that form when water hits the cold pipe. They break loose and make a "basket" in your elbows, then very quickly form a complete clog.

I suspect your problem is creeping up from your crawl space, not your dog ice cube.

Can you zap the pipes with an IR thermometer and look for cold spots? Look for frost on the outside, too, from your breath perhaps.
 
Makes sense to me. A very slow trickle of literally ice cold water flowing through an unheated (I assume) crawl space. You need to get some heat in that crawl space to thaw it out. I had a cellar floor drain that froze once where I couldn't get to it. I ended up pushing a garden hose down the drain and forcing hot water directly on the ice plug. Once I got through the ice plug, the flowing water cleared out the rest of the ice.
 
Originally Posted By: Rolla07
Next time id try boiled water over hot tap water. (I know not very helpful advice for now obviously)


When you go for hot water, you have to clear the pipes of cold. Fill a bucket or something, that 1/2 gallon or so goes down the drain first.
 
Day two. Drain pipe still appears to be frozen. Getting into crawl space is a PIA. I am hoping it will fix itself with some warmer weather. This frozen pipe will not allow me to run the dishwasher. I also removed a covering that will allow more somewhat heated basement air into the crawl space.
 
Get an electric heater and stick it under the sink. Or stick one in the crawl space.
 
Originally Posted By: Donald
...I also removed a covering that will allow more somewhat heated basement air into the crawl space.


Do you have a fan circulating the air? Moving air can work wonders. Just a thought.
 
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The pipe would have to be full of water to get frozen to start with
Why did it not drain well at first?
I think it is clogged further down the line somewhere
I'm no plumber though but I have heard of service lines to the house freezing but never a drain that should be empty
Good luck and I am curious about this
 
I'm not too concerned. All the pipes should have a slight pitch to them so that water can drain. You normally turn on the water and the water should just flow down the drain. As the OP left a block of ice to defrost in the sink, the water going down the drain was already cold and it was just a small drip so it's easy for a small drip to freeze into a solid plug than it is for a flow of water to freeze. OP doesn't mention if his pipes are PVC or iron, iron you could use a heat gun or a torch, but if you go too high, you might risk melting drains held together with lead in old pipes. Just hope the freezing didn't crack any pipes. You won't know that til it defrosts.
 
Originally Posted By: pandus13
Originally Posted By: tdpark
Make a brine

BINGO!
OP, i used that last winter.


Will that flow down into the pipe where its frozen. I am sure there is standing water before its frozen.

This is day 4, still frozen. Dishes are piling up.
 
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