Electric welder to thaw frozen water pipes

[Clarence Martin]

This must be something new. I never heard of thawing frozen water pipes with a Hobart welder.

[Bob Vavricka]

Welders have been used around here and in Kansas where we used to live for a long time. As I understand it only works if your pipes are metal.
Hopefully you are not needing it.

[Tim Offutt]

i have done it many times. You just attach one cable clamp to the start of the water line and the other cable to the end. Turn on the welder and bring up the power. It is a short circuit and it creates heat in the conductor which is the metallic water line. That thaws the ice. But these days most buried lines are plastic which obviously will not work.

[Rod Sheridan]

This must be something new. I never heard of thawing frozen water pipes with a Hobart welder.

Well, it wasn't new when I was doing it almost 40 years ago.:D

You need to make sure you don't exceed the duty cycle of your welder and you need access to the pipe on each end of the frozen section........Regards, Rod.

[Jim Creech]

If it's soldered copper pipe be careful not to get it too hot. I have seen one occurrence where the solder melted. The results were not pretty.

[George Bokros]

Saw this done a number of years ago to a neighbor whose water line from the street to the house froze. It was in Louisville Ky where they only bury the water lines about 18" deep. They had a cold winter with minimal snow cover. They water dept wanted everyone to keep their water running at the rate of a quart of per minute and they credited your water cost to what it was the same period the prior year.

Like has been said it works of it is a copper line and it is not gotten to hot so the solder melts. Most times buried lines do not have soldered joints under ground.