I recently had a frozen drain line. I came up with a pretty good method of thawing the drain line. It froze while I was on vacation for 10 days. The drain line was frozen for about 25 feet. I bought a 30 foot rubber air hose. I cut off one of the end fittings and I attached the other end to a commercial wall paper steamer. ( I rented the steamer.) I snaked the hose into the drain line till I found where the ice started and then heated up the wall paper steamer. It took about 2 hours to thaw the 25' of ice. How did the ice occur you ask? Well it was very cold while I was gone and the thermostat was set at 55 degrees and I shut the water off at the main before I left. BUTTTTTTTT I forgot that my high efficiency furnace expells water into the main drain every so often, so that is where the water came from. Anyway I slayed another dragon by using some good ol Yankee thinking.

My house is 100 years old, and the kitchen is small. We are looking into redoing the kitchen, but there is a stupid pipe, maybe cast iron (?) in the corner of the only workable L that will fit with cabinets. If we frame around it it will take out a good chunk of already small counter and cabinet space. My understanding is that it is a vent off the sewage drain. One person asked if the kitchen sink is the only thing being vented here. How do I tell? There is a stretch of PVC up the other side of the house into which one of the bathrooms drains, but the PVC goes up to the roof, so that's a vent, right? Could that be venting enough for this pipe to be removed? How can I know by looking at the drain pipe setup?