Frozen hot water pipe?

[LeadFarmer]

Any advice for dealing with what I assume is a frozen hot water pipe please?

My hot water taps are bone dry, but my cold water taps work fine, as does my central heating.

My boiler is located in my garage, with pipes coming into the house. A short section of this length of pipe work is exposed to the outside, but is lagged, but maybe insufficiently?

Would I be ok to gently apply a hot air gun to this pipework?
Should I leave the hot taps turned on to allow any water out, once it thaws?

 

[footprints]

If it is a combi check the cold main to the boiler is not frozen too, no cold in means no hot out

 

[John D v2.0]

Assuming copper pipes then yes, but bear in mind the expanding I've may have Damagedr the pipe or fittings, so you could have a leak. Be prepared to turn off the boiler HW isolator.

 

[LeadFarmer]

All sorted. I heated up the pipe with a hot air gun and it worked. But at the same time I had a bit of a disaster...

The combi boiler is in the garage and its pipes have to pass through the garage wall, along the outside of the house and then go through the house wall and inside. The area where the short stretch of pipes run along the outside of the house is under a carport, which is fairly enclosed with doors blocking one end, garage blocking the other end, and the neighbours house blocking the complete length of it. Whilst these pipes are lagged, it does get cold out there.

House wall on the left, garage wall on the right, with the pipes coming through from the garage..




Anyway, whilst heating up the hot water pipe, a plastic 90deg push fit connecter on the cold water pipe suddenly exploded, with water gushing everywhere.




A quick trip to Plumbco for a new connector and all was good, and I'm pleased to say the hot air gun did the trick on the frozen hot water pipe.

 

[LeadFarmer]

Not entirely sure why the cold water push fit connector decided to burst when it did. Could it have anything to do with me heating the hot water pipe, or just purely coincidental and lucky that it happened whilst I was there?