A sewerage system that is built according to all the rules cannot freeze in winter. After all, wastewater does not stagnate, but at the exit it has room temperature. However, due to installation errors, freezing of the system still occurs. The formation of ice in pipes interferes with the normal flow of sewage and is simply annoying. Therefore, immediate elimination of the problem is necessary. We will find out further how to defrost the sewer system without turning to specialists.
First, find out the cause of the ice blockage. Perhaps in the future (spring, summer) the sewer system will have to be redone. Otherwise on next year in cold weather you will again encounter this problem. The main disadvantages of pipe installation include:- The sewer pipes are of insufficient diameter.
- A small slope of the pipe, as a result, sewage flows out at low speed and gradually freezes. There is a risk that the ice plug will stretch the entire length of the pipe.
- Failure to comply with freezing depth. Such a sewer system will need to be redone, otherwise you will not be able to use it in frosty weather.
- Sufficient insulation is not provided.
- Presence of blockage.
- Failure to properly drain the septic tank.
- Small faucet leaks lead to ice freezing in front of the septic tank, which in the future leads to a traffic jam.
The sewer pipes are frozen. Common situation! It would seem that she has no place in reality. Judge for yourself: the wastewater in the house is at least room temperature; the liquid does not stagnate in the pipeline; it enters the sump. To freeze in a private house sewer system, several must match unfavorable factors. Errors in design or installation can lead to a similar result. What to do if the sewage system is frozen and what reasons had such a detrimental effect on its condition, you will learn from the following material.
Let's look at the most common reasons for the formation of ice jams:
- Application of small diameter pipes or their installation at a slight slope. In both cases, the drains will move slowly. Gradually they will accumulate in the pipeline, and in frosty conditions they will freeze. As a result, a long ice plug forms.
- Small leaks. In a private home, the valve in the toilet cistern may also malfunction, or the tap in the kitchen or bathroom may leak. The amount of water entering the pipes will be minimal, so it will freeze before reaching the septic tank. Rows of ice layers form a plug.
- Lack of insulation. You can insulate pipes basalt thermal insulation or waterproofed rolled glass wool, but the ideal remedy protection will be a special polystyrene foam insulation. It is divided into several parts. These elements must fit tightly around the pipes.
Important! The temperature of the water is equally important as its quantity. Even the most insulated pipeline runs the risk of freezing due to liquid leaks.
- Violation of drainage. If the drainage pipes are not laid very deep or the filtration fields are located on small area, water will not come out of the septic tank. It will overflow and liquid will accumulate in the pipes. The situation will only be resolved with warming, and until then the contents of the septic tank will have to be periodically removed.
- Blockage. In this case, you will have to work hard not only on defrosting the pipes, but also on cleaning them.
Important! There is a popular belief that during severe frosts, in order to protect the pipeline from freezing, it is necessary to run a thin stream of water from the tap. As can be seen from the above, such a measure will lead exclusively to disastrous results. Moreover, under the influence low temperatures external environment, the pipeline begins to freeze from the walls.
Ways to solve the problem
The easiest way, of course, is to use the services of plumbers. They often encounter ice jams and undoubtedly know how to remove them. Most often, specialists use steam generators. Using hoses they will supply steam to problem area and they can warm it up.
Defrosting sewer pipes can be done independently. To do this, you need to find answers to a couple of questions:
- Where exactly is the plug located?
- What is its length?
The information will help determine the optimal heating method.
Using hot water
An extremely simple method is used to warm small frozen areas: pour hot water along with salt into the sewer. The liquid will gradually defrost the plug.
Positive aspects of this technique:
- Efficiency;
- Availability of necessary funds;
- Ease of execution;
- Versatility (suitable for both metal and plastic pipes);
- No additional equipment needed.
Negative sides:
- The remedies are effective only when certain conditions. The plug should be small and located close enough. Otherwise, the water will cool down before it can have any positive effect.
Use of a blowtorch
For similar method the location of the ice plug does not matter, the main thing is that the pipes are metal, since plastic will not withstand heating. The frozen section of the pipeline is heated from the outside. In a private house, to carry out these manipulations you need to dig a trench. As the pipe is gradually heated, the ice will melt.
The advantages of this method:
- High efficiency;
- Elimination of traffic jams of any size, regardless of location;
- Easy to do.
- Mandatory trench digging;
- Exclusively for external use;
- Work only with metal pipes.
Steam heating
Plastic pipes cannot be heated with open fire. natural reasons. A steam generator is suitable for this purpose. How to work with it?
- Water is poured into the steam generator.
- Then a hose with a nozzle is inserted into the pipe. It should rest against the ice plug.
- Turn on the unit.
- The cork will melt. The hose is moved forward until it completely disappears.
- Safety;
- Simplicity (to warm the pipes there is no need to dig trenches at all);
- Efficiency.
- High cost of equipment.
Important! Hydrodynamic flushing is a variation of this technique. The process uses units that supply hot water under pressure. In this way, it is possible to remove both the plug and blockages, as well as check the pipes for damage.
Electrical defrosting
The method is only suitable for open metal pipeline. Terminals are fixed along the edges of the frozen area. After applying electricity, they heat the metal, causing the ice to melt. Alternatively, you can install a self-heating cable - the result will be similar.
Important! You can warm up a section of the pipe located above the ground by pouring hot water on it from above.
Preventive measures
In order not to freeze in the winter, defrosting the pipeline, you need to do preventive maintenance in the summer. To do this, you should insulate the pipes with thermal insulation, although you can also use a heating cable. What else needs to be done? In winter, it is enough to periodically pour boiling water into the water supply.
Sewer pipes, unlike water pipes, rarely freeze. After all, the wastewater does not stand in them, but moves towards the sump; moreover, the wastewater leaving the house has room (or even higher) temperature. So, in order for the sewage system to freeze on a site, several unfavorable factors or mistakes that were made during design or installation must come together. If the sewer is frozen, what should you do in this case?
If the sewage system in a private house is frozen, then in this situation it becomes impossible to use water. Therefore, it is necessary to remove the blockage in the sewer pipeline as quickly as possible.
Moreover, before defrosting the sewer, it would not hurt to find out what caused such an accident and, if possible, eliminate it immediately. Because if this is not done, freezing will recur.
Causes of ice formation in pipes
In most cases, the reason why a sewer pipe in a private house is frozen is due to errors during the installation of the system. An accident can also result from misuse sewerage. Here are the main reasons that can cause freezing:
- Insufficient slope of the laid pipe or use of a pipe with a smaller diameter than necessary. Both of these errors lead to the fact that water with impurities moves at low speed, so when severe frosts the liquid will freeze. It should be noted that it is in these situations that the longest ice jams often occur.
- Violation of drainage in the septic tank. If the filtration site made for post-treatment has too small an area or backfill depth drainage pipes is insufficient, then water will not come out of the septic tank. Naturally, this will lead to its overflow, and the newly entering water will be retained in the pipes. In this case, to correct the situation, you will have to pump out the contents of the septic tank, and repeat this operation periodically until the onset of warm weather, when it will be possible to re-equip the filtration fields.
- Blockage. The formation of a blockage can cause the owner of the house to rack his brains over how to defrost a frozen sewer.
- Small leaks. If a faucet or valve is leaking in the house cistern If the toilet bowl does not hold water, a small amount of water will constantly flow into the pipes. Due to the insignificant amount, water can freeze on the way to the septic tank and, freezing layer by layer, create an ice plug.
Advice! There is an opinion that in severe frosts you should let tap water flow in a thin stream so as not to freeze the water pipes. In fact, you shouldn't do this. Water pipes this measure will not save (since freezing starts from the walls there), but it may well cause sewer pipes to freeze.
Methods for defrosting pipes
Once the cause of the accident has been determined, you can begin to eliminate it. First of all, you should assess the scale of the “disaster”, since this may affect the way you solve the problem of how to melt the ice in the sewer. You need to determine:
- Where is the water plug located?
- What is its approximate length?
Flushing the system with hot water
When looking for an answer to the question of how to thaw a sewer, the simplest way to deal with ice jams can help. To eliminate them, you should pour hot water with added salt into the sewer system. This method is good:
- Simplicity,
- It is effective if the plug is small and not located near the sewer outlet from the house. This method works well if the water is frozen in the sewer riser.
Advice! If the plug is located at a great distance, then pouring boiling water into the system is useless; it will still cool down by the time it “gets” to the place of freezing.
Heating with a blowtorch
This method will help no matter where the pipe is frozen. But since the pipeline is located underground, you will have to dig a trench to carry out defrosting, which in winter time is certainly not an easy task.
Also, use blowtorch This is possible if the pipeline is installed from cast iron, but heating sewerage made of plastic cannot be done in this way, since the pipes will simply melt.
Heating with steam
How do they heat plastic sewerage if used? open fire burners excluded? In this case, you can use a steam generator and restore the system using hot steam.
A steam generator can be purchased for personal use or you can use the services of companies offering to eliminate pipeline accidents. What should you do if a pipe freezes?
- The steam generator starts.
- A steam line is inserted into the frozen pipe until it hits a layer of ice.
- As the plug melts, the steam line will need to be moved deeper until the accident is completely eliminated.
The advantages of the method include its effectiveness and safety. The downside is the need to purchase special equipment. A variation of this method is hydrodynamic washing.
In this case, to solve the problem of how to break through a frozen sewer, installations that supply heated water under pressure are used. This defrosting method allows you to simultaneously remove existing blockages and also check whether there is any damage to the pipes along the route.
External heating methods
In addition to using a blowtorch, there are other ways to heat pipes externally. For example, to solve the problem of how to thaw a frozen sewer if the pipes are metal, the electric defrosting method is often used.
To do this, terminals are fixed along the edges of the emergency area, voltage is applied to them, the metal heats up and the ice plug inside melts. In addition, defrosting the sewer using external heating can be done using:
- Hot air produced by a heat gun.
- Self-heating cables that are placed on pipes.
Prevention measures
It is clear that defrosting sewer pipes is not a very pleasant job, and besides, it usually has to be done when it is frosty outside. To avoid this, it is worth taking preventive measures in advance.
It is clear that not in all cases it is possible to lay pipes to a depth at which the soil does not freeze. Indeed, in the northern regions of the country it would then be necessary to dig trenches many meters deep. In such cases, pipe insulation is used, as well as a heating cable for sewerage.
The operating principle of this cable is very simple. Unlike a conductive wire, a cable creates resistance and heats up when exposed to current. The heat is transferred to the pipe, and the liquid in it does not freeze. The heating cable used for sewerage comes in two types:
- A resistor cable that has a constant resistance along its entire length and evenly heats all sections of the pipe.
- Self-regulating cable. Such a cable is capable of changing its conductive properties depending on local conditions. That is, the cable will itself regulate heating in cold areas and stop heating when the temperature reaches positive values. Moreover, the cable will not heat the entire pipe, but only those areas where the temperature is below zero.
Advice! Of course, a self-regulating cable is much more expensive than a simple one, but its use allows you to reduce electricity consumption and not have to worry about manually adjusting the operation of the heating system.
Installing the cable on the pipe
Rules for laying cables in sewers:
- The surface of the pipe being installed must be dry and clean.
- Depending on the type of cable chosen, it is laid in turns with a certain pitch, or two cores are strengthened on both sides of the pipe. The cable is secured on top with adhesive tape with a foil layer.
- Insulation is put on the pipe and the trench is backfilled.
Advice! The foil layer on the adhesive tape will serve to prevent heat dissipation.
If necessary, the heating cable for the sewer can be cut into pieces of the required length. After installation, the ends of the cable will need to be connected to a panel or an outlet.
So, to eliminate ice jams in sewer pipes, they can be used various methods. If an accident occurs, the reasons that caused the malfunction should be identified and eliminated as quickly as possible. Compliance with the rules for laying the pipeline, as well as the use of insulation, including a heating cable, will help prevent freezing.
July 6, 2016Specialization: professional in the field of construction and repair (full cycle of finishing works, both internal and external, from sewerage to electrical and finishing works), installation of window structures. Hobbies: see the column "SPECIALIZATION AND SKILLS"
The question of what to do if the sewage system is frozen in a private house usually arises suddenly. As a rule, the problem is discovered either the next morning after a frosty night, or upon arriving home after a fairly long absence. In any case, there is little pleasant here, but the problem is completely solvable.
Why the sewage system freezes, how to restore its functionality and how to prevent such developments - I will talk about all this in the article, based on my own experience.
Causes and consequences
When cold weather sets in, when the night temperature drops below zero, there is a risk of sewer pipes freezing. As a result, ice plugs form in the cavities, which block the movement of drains.
Normally, a properly laid and properly functioning sewer system should not freeze. However, there are factors that can cause the entire system to fail. I will list the most important of them in the table:
| Cause | Why does it lead to freezing? |
| Shallow gasket | As a rule, the outer part of the sewer network is laid in the soil. In addition to purely aesthetic reasons, this is caused by the desire of each of us to protect the pipe from the cold, since on the surface of the earth the temperature will always be lower than at depth. However, during severe frosts, freezing can also affect the deep layers of the soil along with the pipes laid there. To avoid this, I strongly recommend that before starting sewer installation work, study climate information about your region and determine to what depth the ground freezes. |
| Lack of insulation | All pipelines that are laid under open air, in the ground, in unheated or periodically heated rooms, must be equipped with thermal insulation. If this is not done, then even small area in the basement of the building can become a source of problems with the formation of ice jams. Of course, thermal insulation of pipelines increases the cost of construction, but still the price of insulation is significantly lower than the cost of repairs or major reconstruction the entire system after an impulse, especially unpleasant in winter period. As mine shows personal experience, attempts to save on thermal insulation only lead to increased costs. |
| Blockages inside the pipe | For a pipe to freeze and form a critical mass of ice, there must be some content inside. Normally, sewer pipes are empty most of the time, but if you neglect to clean them regularly, a blockage may form at the bend or junction of the elbows, on which ice will gradually accumulate. The result is predictable - sooner or later the entire gap will be blocked. By the way, a decrease in flow rate is a universal diagnostic sign. If you notice it in time, you can eliminate the problem before it reaches a critical stage. |
| Insufficient slope | Prompt removal Wastewater from the lumen of the pipe, its laying with a slope towards the collector, septic tank or cesspool. Optimal angle the slope is 3-4 degrees, and if you make it smaller, the risk of liquid stagnation and, as a consequence, freezing increases significantly. |
In addition to the above reasons, the efficiency of drainage in a septic tank or other reservoir also plays a role.
If the storage tank is overfilled, then the water from the pipes will simply have nowhere to go.
That’s why in my house before the cold weather sets in, I always inspect the septic tank, and if it’s more than half full, I pump it out.
As a rule, these factors alone rarely lead to the formation of ice jams, but if two or three of them become relevant at the same time, then problems cannot be avoided. The results of such a coincidence are usually very sad:
- since the drain is blocked completely or almost completely, it will be impossible to use the sewer until the causes of the blocking are completely eliminated. Alternative – outdoor toilet– does not seem attractive in winter;
- When the liquid freezes, it expands, which can lead to swelling and rupture of the pipe. It is especially unpleasant if the accident occurs either in basement(sad personal experience - until I discovered the problem, a fair amount of water leaked), or underground (digging frozen soil to carry out repair work– a dubious pleasure).
To summarize, I would like to say one thing: it is better to prevent sewer pipes from freezing by promptly identifying and eliminating possible reasons. However, we can all make mistakes, and therefore it is very important to know how to correct them, and how to break through a frozen sewer with minimal costs time, effort and money.
Solving the problem
Recipe one - rinsing with hot water
Having discovered that the sewer system has frozen and no longer flows through the pipes, many people act purely instinctively - turn on the full power tap with hot water and try to fill the entire pipeline with liquid.
This measure can only be effective if the freezing is quite mild, but then just wait a few minutes and the situation will resolve itself.
If the problem is serious enough, then its solution is complicated by the fact that by the time hot water enters from the tap, there is already cold water. Therefore, at one time I decided to act more inventively:
- Before defrosting the sewer system, if it is frozen, it is necessary to localize the location of the ice plug as accurately as possible. As I noted above, problem areas are corners, pipe joints, and horizontal sections without proper insulation.
- When we more or less accurately determine where the water has frozen, we get to the nearest revision and open it, gaining access to the lumen of the pipe.
I hope when laying external sewerage Did you follow the instructions quite strictly, and were inspection wells installed at every turn and at least every 10 meters on level areas?
If not, then I have bad news for you - you will suffer a lot...
- We take a cable, which is used for cleaning sewers, and a long thin hose. We wrap the hose to the cable with tape so that the end of the cable with a spiral nozzle for breaking blockages protrudes by 3 - 5 cm. Additionally, you can fix the hose along its entire length with interceptions every 50 - 70 cm.
- We insert the cable with the hose into the lumen of the pipe and gradually push it until we hit the ice plug. We try to destroy it with a few movements - we most likely will not succeed, but it’s worth a try.
- We insert a funnel into the free end of the hose, which we then further secure so that we do not have to hold it with our hands.
- Now we prepare a life-saving solution: boil three to five liters of water, add five to six tablespoons of salt to the water (more is possible), mix and immediately after dissolving the crystals, pour it into a funnel.
If the inspection is very close to a frozen area, then some of the boiling water may spill out of it (in my case this is exactly what happened).
We are taking precautions!
- After waiting two to three minutes, push the cable forward, destroying the ice plug. If unsuccessful, repeat the operations with pouring boiling water.
- When the problem is resolved, close the inspection and flush the pipe with plenty of hot water to remove any remaining frozen drainage.
Recipe two - heat treatment
If the thickness of the plug exceeds 20 - 30 centimeters (it is not clear how the sewer can get to this point, but I had to deal with this situation at least twice), boiling water does not help. You will have to use available tools:
- We connect the old heating element (precisely old, since the probability of its failure during operation is very high, so we take what we don’t mind) to two insulated wires. Carefully wrap the contact area with electrical tape to prevent liquid from getting inside.
- We wind the wire with the heating element to the cable for the pipes. If a rigid cable is used, then you can do without a cable - anyway, we will not use its attachment to destroy the plug in this situation.
- Through a revision or a removed elbow, we pass the entire structure into the lumen of the sewer and move it to the place where the ice plug forms.
- We turn on the heating element, making sure that we ourselves do not come into contact with the wet walls of the pipe - although we took care of the insulation, it’s worth taking care.
If a metal pipe is frozen, then I would not risk using electrical appliances.
- We gradually move the heating element deeper into the pipe, trying to make at least a small through hole.
- As soon as the movement of the waste is restored, we remove the heating element with the cable and simply rinse with hot water.
In fairness, it should be noted that in such difficult situation I wasn’t always able to cope with it with my own hands. If the idea with a heating element is not successful, then you should contact your local Vodokanal: usually this organization has powerful steam generators with a rigid hose that allow you to melt the ice inside the pipes. Naturally, you will have to pay for the repair team to come out.
Recipe three - external heating
If we have access to a frozen section of sewer, or we can provide it (from my point of view, sometimes dig half a meter frozen soil- this is a completely acceptable price for the opportunity to solve the problem without losses), then the situation becomes noticeably simpler. What to do if you're frozen sewage pipe– we’ll tell you below:
- Metal pipes (steel and cast iron) are quickly tidied up using a blowtorch. We simply turn on the device and apply a flame to the walls of the pipe opposite the ice plug: usually two or three minutes is enough for me to completely remove the blockage, but if you don’t have experience, it’s better to work longer without damaging the pipe itself.
- Plastic pipes should not be exposed to open fire. We wrap the area under which the ice is located with rags and pour boiling water over it, creating a “bathhouse effect.” The procedure takes me longer than when working with a blowtorch, but not by much.
- Quite often, ice accumulates in the tees, which are quite problematic to warm up. To enhance the effect, I tried placing a container of boiling water under the tee: the rising steam heated the walls of the pipe in their coldest part, and the plug turned out to be hot water.
Boiling water, of course, needs to be topped up periodically.
- If you have a household steam generator, such as the one included in the kit car wash- Great! We use it in the same way as a blowtorch: a jet of steam directed at a sewer pipe is not much inferior in effect to a flame, but it can be used for metal, plastic, and ceramics.
- Finally, there is a completely extreme method - electric defrosting. We install terminals on the surface of the metal pipe and apply voltage to them. The pipe heats up, the ice melts, and the flow of wastewater is restored. The main difficulty: all operations must be performed by a professional electrician!
Prevention
Thermal insulation
If we are just planning to lay a sewer system, or have solved the problem with freezing, and do not want it to happen again, then it is worth figuring out how to avoid such a development of the situation. The easiest way is to lay the pipes correctly from the beginning, and this can be done by doing the work the way I once did on my site:
- The outer part of the system is laid in trenches, the bottom of which is below the freezing level of the soil.. For most regions, this depth ranges from 0.8 to 1.5 m, but sometimes it is necessary to go deeper to 2 – 2.5 m.
- Place a sand cushion about 15 cm thick at the bottom of the trench.
- We lay the sewer pipe in thermal insulation. I used a casing made of mineral wool, but you can also use a “shell” made of polystyrene foam or simply cover it with sawdust in a layer of 25–30 cm.
- We fill the sewer with clay on top, and then with the earth removed when digging the trench..
- Areas running along the surface are also carefully insulated. using material with a thickness of at least 50 mm. The same applies to sewer pipes that run in unheated rooms.
Cable heating
However, even the thickest layer of thermal insulation cannot always cope with a sudden sharp drop in temperature. In addition, in some regions of Russia, it is very difficult to lay a sewer system below the ground freezing level - you will have to dig a trench two meters deep. In this situation, active heating with the help of special ones helps.
Freezing is prevented in this way:
- A self-regulating conductor (my choice, since it is guaranteed not to overheat or burn out) or a wire connected to a thermostat (more cheap option), we wrap it around the pipe or lay it on its surface.
The design of some cables allows for internal installation.
By the way, they can be used not only in sewer systems, but also in water pipes.
- We fix a heating element using metallized tape, which helps concentrate the generated heat.
- I mounted a heat-insulating shell on top - in any case, it will not be superfluous.
- When cold weather sets in, I connect the cable to the mains. When current passes, the conductive wires heat up, transferring heat to the walls of the pipe and preventing its contents from freezing.
- Except preventive work Cables of this type (naturally, pre-laid along the pipe) can also be used to remove already formed ice plugs. It is enough to simply turn on the heating element in the system, and in half an hour or an hour the problem will be solved.
Pipes operating in extreme conditions, sometimes you have to heat it like this
Cases where sewer pipes freeze are not uncommon. And methods to combat this phenomenon have been developed. Therefore, you should not waste time worrying, but immediately move on to action.
The sewer is frozen - call the plumbers...
If ice has formed in the sewer pipes and the drainage does not occur, then the first thing that comes to mind is to call the water utility services. And this correct solution. Plumbers have necessary equipment for defrosting, or at least should have one in theory.
You don’t have to do anything yourself, just pay…. To heat up sewer pipes, steam generators are used - special devices that supply steam through hoses to the point where ice forms inside the sewer pipe.
But it often happens that plumbers have a lot of orders, or they all quit at once. Or you just don’t want to spend extra money on a problem that you can fix yourself.
To melt the ice in the sewer yourself, you will have to imitate the actions of plumbing services or use some tricks.
If a sewer pipe is frozen, then first of all you need to remember what material it is made of, i.e. plastic pipes or cast iron? For different types pipes, different methods can be used.
How to heat up a cast iron pipe
The easiest way to heat metal pipes is with electricity. But for this you need a special device - a step-down transformer with regulation of the supplied voltage. Typically, to heat up cast iron sewer pipes that have frozen, they use welding machine. It can produce a voltage of about 30 - 70 volts.
One wire is connected to the pipe, and the other is grounded away from the pipe. As a result electricity, passing through a metal pipe, will go into the frozen ground along its entire length.
It is advisable to connect the electricity closer to the freezing point, so that the maximum current flows through the pipe at this point. For example, this is possible if inspection wells for sewerage are installed.
But in most cases on private plots inspection wells no, and the freezing point of the sewer pipe is not known in advance. Then it is advisable to connect the frozen pipe to the phase in two places - at the exit point from the house and at the entry point into the septic tank.
When electric current passes through the pipe for several hours, the ice around its perimeter will thaw and a small drain will appear. After which boiling water is poured into the pipe in large quantities until full recovery bandwidth.
It is not allowed to connect the pipeline directly to a 220 V outlet (although some do this).
A plastic sewer pipeline is frozen, how to melt the ice?
Electrical heating is the easiest way to melt ice in a frozen drain. But what to do if the sewer pipe is made of plastic, because it almost does not conduct electric current.
Then it is best to try to create an imitation of a steam generator. Long thin pipes (plastic or metal) are needed that can be pushed into the pipeline to the point of the ice jam. A filling funnel is connected to the end of these pipes.
Boiling water is supplied to the pipes. The incoming water will displace water from the sewer pipe, so you will need to organize the necessary utensils to collect it. It is important to squeeze the pipes as close as possible into the ice plug, that is, into the gap that is located at the top of the pipe between the ice and its wall.
Get ready for a long day of work. The pipeline will defrost slowly—one meter per hour. The speed depends both on the volume of boiling water supplied and on the volume of ice in the pipe. The boiling water consumption is approximately the same - 10 liters of boiling water per 10 cm of forward movement. But the traffic jam itself may not last too long.
If they start to warm up sewer pipeline water, the process cannot be interrupted. After all, the pipe will be completely filled in the area from the house to the place of the ice jam. If you stop the process, then all the water in the pipe will freeze soon, and then it will be much more difficult to warm the pipeline. When stopping the process, you need to pump out water from the pipeline.
If the sewer pipe is straight, then you can use a straight plastic, metal-plastic or metal pipe as a supply hose. Solid pipe It is preferable to use them, since they can even destroy ice in the sewer.
But what to do if there are bends in the frozen sewer pipeline?
Then you need to apply flexible hose, but such that he would not be afraid of high temperatures. A polyethylene hose will not work. A hose, for example, from a water level (a water level is sold in stores) may be suitable. The same goes for a funnel. Suitable as a filling funnel, for example, a medical device - Esmarch's mug.
This hose is tied to a metal wire at intervals using tape or tape. The wire must protrude in front of the hose, and its end must be bent back. Such a device will bypass obstacles and fit into the pipeline configuration.
Is it possible to mechanize the heating process? frozen pipeline with the help of water? Yes, sure. But then you will need a continuous supply of water (connection to a pipeline or pumping unit), very powerful heater, nozzle at the end of the pipe. In fact, this will be a steam generator.
How to melt ice in a drain pipe using electricity
There is another option for heating a frozen plastic sewer pipeline using water. But this time the water will be heated by electricity directly in the pipe near the ice jam.
To do this, water is pumped into the frozen sewer pipeline. electric water heater. The pipe is filled with water so that the heater is submerged. And they supply electric current. The heater heats the water directly next to the ice and it slowly thaws. The method is slow, but you don’t need to constantly supply boiling water, but only occasionally try to push the heater forward.
It’s easy to make such a device for heating frozen sewer pipes yourself. The main thing is to avoid direct contact of the heater with the wall plastic pipe. To do this, the heater must be protected with a strong lattice shell made of mesh (wire), which will rest against the ice. You will have to make such a grille around the heater yourself.
TO electrical cable a U-shaped heater is connected and the cable is passed through a rigid plastic pipe that will feed into the frozen pipeline.
The heater is fixed with electrical tape at the end of the pipe. At the end of a rigid plastic pipe, the heater guard is secured with electrical tape. This design is fed all the way into the ice. Water is poured into the sewer pipeline (the pipe has a slope towards the house). The heater should be immersed in water. Then it is connected to 220 V.
And then wait, not forgetting to move the structure and move it forward little by little. It may happen that the water in the pipe overheats. Then you need to turn off the voltage. Boiling water can only damage the pipeline (), but the speed of progress will not increase much.
Why does the sewer freeze?
If the sewer pipeline is frozen, this means that its depth is insufficient. It is located in a zone of freezing ground. But, as a rule, it is often simply impossible to increase the laying depth. Here the role is played by the elevation of the drain point, which is simply very problematic to make lower. We will have to deepen septic tanks, etc.
But the sewer pipeline can be insulated. To insulate pipelines, special polystyrene foam insulation is sold in the form of several parts that tightly compress the pipeline. This optimal choice insulation. You can also insulate using rolled glass wool (but it must be carefully waterproofed) or, more expensively, basalt thermal insulation.
Also important role plays by the temperature and the amount of water passing through the pipeline, which determines how much heat is supplied to the pipeline. After all, even an insulated pipeline can freeze if water flows into it drop by drop.
The sewer pipeline freezes in the following way. As a rule, it is not completely filled - in best case scenario by 1/3. It is in the lower part that the water clings to the walls, which have a temperature below 0 degrees. A jam with a puddle forms. The puddle freezes. With subsequent influx of water, the height of the ice increases. And the process is repeated until the ice covers the entire section.