Incoming Water Main Frozen - Advice Please

[VR6]

Hello All, Hope you had a nice xmas!

It was -10 down in Dorset last night and I'm pretty sure my incoming water pipe (blue poly ((25mm?)) is frozen. Certainly the outside tap that comes up from it is frozen solid!
I have a fan heater out there at the moment warming things up but -

Inside I have a worcester 24i system boiler and a pressurised ariston tank.
Should I be able to use my tank full of hot water as I all I get is a dribble?
The tank gurgles very loud when I open any hot tap

The cold doesnt flow from any tap but I guess that is down to the frozen incoming water, I thought the benefit of a system boiler was you could still use the hot water from the tank in this sort of situation or does it need incoming water for the hot to flow?

Thanks in advance for your help & advice

VR6

 

[Puddle]

You are correct you do need the mains flowing through the unvented cylinder for hot to come out the taps, you have no water storage, except what’s in the cylinder and that stays in cylinder at all times,to allow water to be heated, unlike open vented cylinders, were you have a maybe 50+ gal water tank that gives you that buffer at times like this

 

[djboyd]

-10 is not so cold! up here in the north of scotland the temp has often reached -15. Every winter will see a cold snap of minus double figures and there are not many problems of frozen mains water - perhaps they are buried deeper up here?

 

[julesverne]

according to the local paper in bradford , yorkshire water have had around 300 burst mains in this area alone.

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

news tonight lots of people without water in Wales due to incoming mains burst

 

[johnspeed]

My solution was to hire a propane garden flame torch (used to kill weeds and sterilise the ground) and gently over an hour play the flames over the ground above the service pipe between the house and the rosdside meter. I also poured hot water over the mains stop stop located in the meter hole. The heat pentrated the gound very slowly so it was a further two hours before it reached the pipe and defrosted.
Might not be the text book way but worked for me.