How to defrost a pipe with a welding machine.

In anticipation of the onset of cold weather, I want to share with you the successful experience of heating pipes with a welding machine.

During last year's frosts, my water pipe froze at the entrance to the house. To begin with, I decided which particular area was frozen. In the street well, where the meter is located, there were no problems. Water was flowing in the column, while the counter was spinning properly. But there was no water in the house.

The section of water supply from the well to the house was laid with a steel pipe. At that time, I had already heard that a frozen steel pipe can be thawed with a welding machine. But how to heat up a frozen pipe so as not to spoil the apparatus?

Technology began to search on the Internet. But almost all sites were limited to very brief information: “Connect the welding wires to the beginning and end of the ice plug, turn on the welding wire for half an hour. The taps must be open so that the expanding water does not break the pipes ... ”Something like that. Here are all the details...

I had this simple welding machine at my disposal:

Having unscrewed the welding current adjustment knob to a minimum, I connected the "mass" to the pipe in the well.

But how to connect to the end that is in the house? Weld ends are short. Only 2 meters!

I had to build on what I had. Along the street, I laid reinforcement with a diameter of 10 mm (to the window). And around the house (from fittings to the pipe) PVA cable 4x6. Of course, he twisted the wires in parallel.

And now the exciting moment of turning on this shaitan installation has come.

The transformer buzzed quite normally, without anguish. I immediately measured the current with a clamp meter. Only 30A came out.

Not enough. Agree...

As I expected, the reason for this was bad contacts - connecting the cable to the pipe, the cable to the fittings. After installing additional clamps, the re-enablement turned out to be more successful. This time, the current clamp showed 80 A!!! This is already something!

Didn't mess with the device. Still not state-owned ...

He worked for me in this mode: it buzzes for 5 minutes, cools down for 5 minutes. The windings have warmed up, but not to a critical temperature (you can hold your hand). The armature lying on the snow heated up so that it melted the snow around it. Most of all, I was worried about the state of PVA ... oh, he was very warm. After half an hour of such “dancing with a tambourine”, without achieving any effect, I decided to raise the current.

Having wound 120A, I reduced the operating time of the device to 3 minutes. And ... About a miracle !!! Water slowly began to seep out of the open faucet. Another 5-7 minutes and the water in the house went "as it should."

During the winter, this pipe froze over one more time. He heated it according to already proven technology. But in the summer, I decided to dig out this section of the pipeline in order to insulate it. The defrosting did not go unnoticed for the pipe.

The pipe consisted of 3 pieces, interconnected by threaded couplings. In these places, apparently, there was the greatest heating. The thread was sealed with tow, which was almost completely burned out. At all connections, there was a slight water leak ... New pipes were put in plastic, insulated. Just in case, I laid a heating cable from the “warm floor” along the pipe - all of a sudden it would be more convenient to defrost something.

Well ... there were no big frosts yet. Let's see how this technology will show itself ...