Thawing frozen water pipes?

[Paul Sandhu]

This is an appropriate time of the year for a post like this. How do you deal with frozen plumbing pipes in your STR?

About 12 months ago I had 3 houses with a frozen main water line.  There was no water coming from any outlet in the house, hot or cold.  I rented a 250k BTU torpedo style construction heater from a hardware store.  It is fueled by diesel or kerosene from an internal tank.  The tank holds 5 gallons.  The whole thing weighs about 100 lbs when the tanks are full.  It takes 2 people to move it.  You need a truck.  It would fit in the back seat of a car, but it would be cumbersome.  It also needs a 110 volt power supply to run the fan.  It took about 20 minutes to unfreeze the pipes in a 3 story house.  I'm assuming the main was frozen, plus all the individual hot and cold lines.  A 2 story house with the same problem took 15 minutes.  A single story 2 BR house took less than 10 minutes.

With my luck, pipes freeze when the hardware store is closed.  Or someone else has it rented.  So I bought a 150k BTU propane fueled torpedo style heater for about $120.  It weighs about 20 lbs by itself, and also runs on 110 volts.  One person can move this and set it up.  It just takes two trips from the vehicle it is transported in.  One to carry the heater and extension cord, another trip to carry the propane tank and wrench.  I haven't used it to thaw any pipes, but it would probably take twice as long as the big 250k BTU heater.  I use it in my garage when I work out.  It's a 2 car garage with a workspace.  It heats the whole room by 15 degrees every 10 minutes.  I keep a carbon monoxide detector in there.  It has yet to go off.  

So that is my suggestion to you, buy a propane fired torpedo heater in the 150k BTU range if you feel the need for this sort of thing.