Frozen Pipe in Wall

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BobE1960

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We have a frozen pipe within a wall in my mother's house. We're located in southern IN so it's not normally sub freezing for long periods. She is currently in rehab in a nursing home and no one is staying at the house. Not sure how to address it. Leave the water on and risk a thaw and leak while no one is home or shut the main off completely and turn in back on after the thaw?? We expect her to be released from the pen (eh, hum I mean nursing home) around the 20th. Hopefully the weather will warm by that time, but we're not sure. She'll need water service on and working by then!

Background details: The house is a ranch style on a slab. The water service enters in the center of the house through the slab foundation between the kitchen and bath. This service is not frozen. There is a line that runs somewhere through the rear exterior wall to the end of the house that feeds the refrigerator and washing machine. We've had problems in the past with the refer line freezing and there's a 4" x 7" hole cut in wall where the plastic refer lines connects to the copper line. We keep a cabinet pulled out away from the wall in the winter to help heat get to this area, which in the past couple years has worked. This year - a much colder year - has frozen the copper line somewhere so there's no water to either the fridge, or further down the line to the washer.

Thanks for any suggestions! I'm sure I'm not the first with a cold question so I apologize if I'm duplicating a thread here... just really need to address it quickly.
 
Yes, shut the main down till you get it thawed. You do not want that to thaw when the place is empty.
 
Thanks CT, that's what I did. It has now thawed and all's good. I'm not sure what we can do about this line for the future though. It's position in the wall make it susceptible to freezing and there are no faucets along it keep running when it's cold. I thought about installing a couple "Y" fittings to the spigots where the washing machine hooks up and running a couple short hoses from these fittings into the washer drain to keep a slow stream running when it's freezing outside. Any other ideas that might keep this from freezing up when the weather's cold?
 
That's about the best you could do without accessing and heat taping them.
 

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