How thaw a frozen hose pipe?

Answer 1

First off if your hose has frozen to your hose bib and the water is off it's just a mechanical freeze. This best way to unfreeze this is to get a bucket of hot water and a few rags. You can wrap one hot wet rag around the bib and the other around the hose. Use another rag to keep wetting the connection with the hot water. There may be ice inside the connection so be patience and only start disconnecting when you more than have warmed up the connection. If you try to pry anything apart and damage the bib you could burst the pipe back inside the house and then you will have one heck of a SERIOUS problem. Been there done that.

Now if the hose is attached and the water was left on and the whole connection is frozen solid you have even a more serious problem than above. Start with the same procedure and warm the hose bib and hose up enough with hot water to disconnect the hose. You'll be tempted to want to shut off the hose bib supply but here you must take CONSIDERABLE CAUTION. If the handle seems stiff like it doesn't want to move than DO NOT MOVE IT. People often think they can break the ice in there by tightening the handle hard and what they do is break the stem inside the hose bib. When this happens you will have no way to stop water coming out of the outside bib. You'll have to shut off the main at your house until you fix that bib or can somehow cap it. Talk about making way more trouble for yourself than necessary. Instead just leave the valve frozen in the open position. You can put a large bucket underneath. When the temps hit their highest of the day that is the best time to try to thaw the hose bib from both the outside and preferably inside. Most likely it won't be frozen that far up into the line so if you don't have a basement or easy access to the underneath of your house than keep working the problem from the outside. The warm rags on the metal should eventually conduct enough heat to release the ice around the inside of the hose bib stem. The general rule of thumb here is do not force anything or you can have burst Plumbing on the outside and even inside of your exterior house wall. Always heat and heat and heat before trying to work any valve that you know has been frozen.

One easy fix to leaving your hoses out all winter long so you can water is to simply hook up an air compressor (should you have one) and blow out your garden hoses with the air compressor. This works extremely well and you don't have to pick up your hoses throughout the winter. A simple conversion of the quick discconects of your air compressor to the garden hose can be purchased at any home improvement store. This is how i've been water in the winter time here in the high desert for years. Never trust people who tell you that you don't have to water. That is only for climates that get a lot of winter rain with their winter snow. Nearly every tree you plant (with few exceptions) will need some water in the dormant seasons. Watering 1-2 times a month should be your minimum in desert climates. Much less or none at all if you live in much rainier climates. The people I see who never water their trees in winter often get a surprise when the tree fails to bloom in spring and is as dead as a twig.