He plugged in the hairdryer. The sound of the fan whirred loudly in the confined space, a modern intruder in the ancient dark. He set it to low heat. High heat was the enemy here. If you blasted a frozen pipe with intense fire, the ice expanded too fast, or the metal heated unevenly, and the pipe would burst. Then you wouldn't have a blockage; you’d have a flood.
Elias had grown up in this valley, where winters were measured not in inches of snow, but in the silence of the earth. He knew the specific, chilling sound a house made when the deep frost set in—a settling groan, a tightening of the timber joints. But this morning, the silence was wrong. how to unfreeze drain pipes