Weird Frozen Pipe Issue

[shfrey]

Hello - so it's -10 degree F outside this morning - very unusual for our area. The kitchen sink has hot water but no cold. I assumed it was frozen pipe - the kitchen water pipes have been prone to freezing in extreme cold in the past. We left the water on overnight at a trickle to prevent freezing but perhaps it was too slow a drip.

However... here's where it gets weird: our refrigerator that has a water hookup. The refrigerator taps into the cold water supply (like you'd expect), so I'd expect it to be frozen too. Well, we get water out of the refrigerator, but only if the HOT water in the sink is running. If water is coming out of the fridge, and I turn off the water to the sink OR try to switch the sink to cold water, then water stops coming out of the fridge.

Also, the water coming out of the fridge is pretty warm - well above room temperature, but not as hot as the hot water. I've been running the hot water a lot in hopes that warming that pipe might help thaw the adjacent frozen cold pipe, but I wouldn't think it warm it up that much. All other cold and hot water taps in the house are working normally. I'm at a loss on this one. Any help with an explanation would be much appreciated.

 

[Jeff H Young]

cold line is frozen up stream of where the icemaker line connects to the cold when sink hot water is run it backfeeds through the faucet and the hot water continues down to the anglestop down wall and then to icemaker. hope it makes sence its obvious if you work your way through it just hard to explain