During the big freeze, despite our precautions, one bathroom faucet stopped working. It is in the middle of the house, but the line does come directly up from our unheated basement (so do all the lines, but this was the only one that had a problem.)
I spent a day applying heat, not directly to the line, as it is mostly inaccessible, but in the basement. As the temperature warmed, I got a slight trickle, but it never got better from either the hot or the cold handle after 48 hours of outside and
basement temps returning to normal.
In addition, though the tub in the same bathroom was working, I noticed a little bit of black sediment, like finely ground pepper in the water, coming from the tub faucet.
This morning, working under the assumption that they may have still been ice in the sink PEX lines, I thought I’d apply heat more directly, so I turned off the water, but before I did that, I disconnected the braided intake lines that go between the PEX from downstairs and the valves in the sink. Immediately I noticed water under pressure shooting up from the PEX valves, so I knew this was a sink issue. I removed the strainer at the faucet and after that, water flowed freely, once about a teaspoon of that same black stuff was all washed out.
So what happened? Were the black sediments related to the freeze? How? Or was it just a total coincidence that the only time our sink has ever given us a problem with water flow was when it was 15 degrees below zero outside?
I spent a day applying heat, not directly to the line, as it is mostly inaccessible, but in the basement. As the temperature warmed, I got a slight trickle, but it never got better from either the hot or the cold handle after 48 hours of outside and
basement temps returning to normal.
In addition, though the tub in the same bathroom was working, I noticed a little bit of black sediment, like finely ground pepper in the water, coming from the tub faucet.
This morning, working under the assumption that they may have still been ice in the sink PEX lines, I thought I’d apply heat more directly, so I turned off the water, but before I did that, I disconnected the braided intake lines that go between the PEX from downstairs and the valves in the sink. Immediately I noticed water under pressure shooting up from the PEX valves, so I knew this was a sink issue. I removed the strainer at the faucet and after that, water flowed freely, once about a teaspoon of that same black stuff was all washed out.
So what happened? Were the black sediments related to the freeze? How? Or was it just a total coincidence that the only time our sink has ever given us a problem with water flow was when it was 15 degrees below zero outside?
