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I really didn't expect the heat gun to work in the basement as I wasn't going to leave that one on all night. Fire hazard in the meter pit way out in the driveway I'm okay with, but my basement is another story. I don't really expect it would melt as too much heat escapes. The pit was almost...

It's supposed to get well above freezing here next week. Hopefully we can keep the warmer weather for awhile.

If you want you can go back through the responses for more detail, but the short and short is that it was frozen before the meter as I had no water to the meter. I had a heat gun in the meter pit for well over 12 hours (whether it thawed or not I'm not sure as the water company refuses to come...

Attempt #2 I called the water company Monday. All I wanted was for them to see if I had water going to the meter (that way I would know if what I did worked or not for sure) and they completely refused.

If I have water going to the meter I will know. It's a brand new meter so the dials are completely fresh. The dials will move once I get water there as it will have at least a little bit of line it can go to.

Current temp is 20, there is still no water going to the meter. I can't turn the AV valve with channel locks, but it does have an arrow on the cap that is pointing to the meter. It was really the only thing they would do so I figured at least it would be a new meter since mine was fairly old...

Are there any other possibilities on what could be wrong?

I was $20 or so that I've had for a few years so I was more than happy to sacrifice it for water, but I'm not really sure what caused it to actually die, but I suspect that the motor burnt out or the wires melted.

Update 4 - The heat gun ran well over 12 hours (I went to sleep so I'm not sure exactly how long) and it didn't work, but it got the pit plenty hot. I would think that would be hot enough to thaw out in at least 3 feet each way from the pit if not more. Snow and ice was melted down to the...

Update 3 - The heat gun has been in the pit for just over 10 hours now on max air flow (I'm actually surprised it is still running as I thought it would have had an overheat shut off) and it's stilling doing the job. So far no sign of water, but things are still going okay. I have a tarp over...

Unfortunately my wife wasn't comfortable being the catastrophe fall back so I let her unplug it, and I was busy for the rest of the day. I put things back together today and it's been a few hours, so far nothing.

I don't really think I do. My lines were emptied of water when the meter was taken apart. I know that it is possible that was just to the frozen section, but I don't think it's likely as shortly before on my end the blow torch was used. So if it is the case the water refroze at that point. I...

I'm not currently home so I can't get you a picture (I do have someone there overseeing the pit just to make sure catastrophe doesn't strike), but rough dimension would be about 36" deep and maybe 24" diameter (complete guess there as It's hard for me to say since the lid isn't the same size as...

The heat gun is in the pit sitting on a couple of bricks with max air flow. I didn't pile snow on top as suggested, I was assuming the lid would be sealed when I said that forgetting that I would have a cord running down there. I removed a bit of snow from around the pit as well just in case...

Chuckled at this a bit just because for some reason Indy has gotten more snow than Denver, Minneapolis, and New York (as well as others obviously) I know snow doesn't equate to MN cold, but a chuckle still. I have just gotten an outdoor extension cord long enough to get to the meter as well as...

That is exactly what I thought, even if it didn't turn to ice immediately it would just freeze my pit anyways. The supervisor for Citizens Energy Group was the one who came up with the idea, of course thinking he knew what he was doing I obliged. It's a bit of a distance, but I can run to it...

I completely agree, but at this point I think it was wasted a long time ago. I haven't had water for 8 days now. It took 7 just for the water company to tell me what and where the problem was so at this point whatever was gonna happen already did.

Okay that made me laugh. The city doesn't thaw pipes, they're not required to by law. I'll make sure everything is good on the safe side. Water and electricity never mix. I'll make a few calls and see if I can rent a Salamander from somewhere as I don't currently own one nor in the position...

I do own a 1500 watt heat gun. If I was to fashion some kind of support so that it will get air flow along with not blowing directly on anything how would that fair? It claims to be around 700 (low setting) - 1000 (high setting) degrees F and somewhere around 5,000 BTUs/hour.

I was thinking that some type of rod could be driven down to the main, but with the ground the way it is I was unsure of the difficulty of that especially if the fire hydrant would work. So far all good solutions and I will be attempting the heat first, but as I said I'm not sure it will work...