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Can you please help me figure out this plumbing problem?

Asked by jca2 (16276points) December 27th, 2022

This weekend, we had very cold temperatures, in the single digits.

Christmas eve, it was about 4 degrees during the day, and my basement door was accidentally left open, so the basement was freezing. I had the sinks running a trickle, so they weren’t frozen, but the shower froze, A friend came over and got it unfrozen, and he put a heater in the basement.

Around 10 at night, my daughter took a shower. Shortly after, I got a phone call from a neighbor that there was water coming from a drain in front of my house. Apparently there was also a FB post in the local group, neighbors were looking for my contact info to let me know that water was coming from my basement. I went to the basement and water was streaming into the basement from below the bathroom area. Water was pouring in and the basement floor was getting flooded. A neighbor came and shut the water off for me, which I was very grateful for. I had been calling plumbers but there were no plumbers available at midnight on Christmas eve. The 24 hour ones were dealing with people’s frozen pipes, from the power outages in the area.

A friend came over early Christmas morning, and turned the water on, coming into the house. He looked at the shower pipe and it seemed fine. Everything seemed fine. I took a shower, all was fine, water pressure was fine. I was texting a neighbor who inquired about whether I got the problem taken care of, and I told her how it was so weird but everything seemed fine now. She said probably the pipe is frozen, was frozen from when the guy shut the water off at midnight on Chirstmas eve, and when things warm up, later on this week, the gushing will start again.

At least if that happens, I know how to shut the water off.

I’ve taken two showers since Christmas day, and I have used the cold water in the shower to test whether that was working ok and it is.

Is it possible there’s a frozen spot in the pipes and yet the shower is working fine, both hot and cold water? It really doesn’t make sense that it was gushing out on Christmas eve and now it’s fine. The heater is still on in the basement, the door is closed and the temperature outside is in the high 20’s, so it’s not totally frigid. Yet, I know that plumbing problems don’t usually go away on their own.

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