Hot Water won't turn off, Cold water won't turn on in bathroom

Question

I don't know much about anything actually relevant here but for whatever reason the water specifically in our bathroom is basically broken. We live in a trailer so we leave the hot water dripping in the cold temperatures of the winter nights to avoid the pipes freezing but when we checked the water this morning there's a constant trickle of hot water coming from the tub faucet that can't be stopped and the cold water doesn't turn on at all when I twist the knob. The same goes for the sink in the bathroom as well - but the kitchen sink is just fine as is the toilet. Turning the shower knob to turn on the overhead nozzle similarly makes it start dripping but it doesn't seem to want to start. The water is naturally scorching hot and twisting the cold knob all the way does nothing.

Could this just have to do with cold weather and frozen pipes? Did something break? Thanks for any help. ^^

Answer 1

I had a friend whose father-in-law lived in a trailer and had issues with freezing pipes.

He pulled some of the skirting back and climbed underneath with thermally controlled heat tape and pipe insulation. After about an hours work of taping the heat tape to the supply plumbing under the trailer, then wrapping the insulation around that, he plugged the heat tapes into some extension cords and there were no more issues with frozen pipes and no need to leave faucets running.

Drawbacks:

• You'll have a tangle of "permanently installed" extension cords which isn't necessarily up to code
• I don't think those heat tapes are designed for that kind of permanent installation.
  • A counter-point - I've had one installed for more than 30 years on my water supply line where it comes out of the ground and into my unheated crawl-space and haven't had issues with it. I don't know if it has ever kicked on or not, but I've never had a frozen pipe. Additionally, this is anecdotal evidence, one single data point, and is likely still a code violation, so that doesn't make it OK.

It's entirely possible that just a good, solid layer of insulation around the piping would do the trick. As added bonuses, this would be entirely code legal and would cost less, so it's probably a better place to start.