You must've missed my Endless OP wherein I held forth at unforgivable length about the grand scheme that turned out all wrong. I'll try to make this reply short and sweet.
Polar vortex:
As a damnYankee I know a thing or two about living in cold climates. What I failed to learn is how to cope in the MidWest where the house I bought for retirement has a narrow crawl space that nobody's been willing to enter for any amount of $ in 8 years so far. The pipes are unwrapped. The trap for the pvc exit pipe for the washing machine is NOT just above the laundry room floor where it belongs. Every year at least a couple times the water in the trap freezes; all I generally need to do if I can't wait for it to thaw on its own is pour boiling water down the exit pipe, or failing that, baking soda and vinegar.
Before this year the weather's never stayed so far below zero such a long time, at least not since I've been here. Recently I tried over a week to thaw the ice jam in the trap and couldn't, the mound of dirty laundry prompting my doomed solution. Next I tried non-toxic anti-freeze. No luck - too late. Then I hit upon the brilliant idea of pouring a few teaspoons of non-toxic de-icer salt down the exit pipe, which promptly swelled up and hardened like brick when I added boiling water on top of it. For another week that refused to budge. The manufacturer assured me it would NOT melt. So I had to saw off the exit pipe around 2" above the floor and throw away the 3' plugged up section. There was a tiny bit of de-icer left that low but not too much to work out.
So I got off rather easily, discounting wear and tear on my nerves. There would've been no use turning any sort of heat on the original 3' of pipe sticking up above floor level because (pre-salt) I would've been heating air. The trap's ice jam is too far away to be affected. The only permanent solution - putting the trap inside the house - is too expensive right now. So with the next Polar Vortex due soon, I'll put a half cup non-toxic anti-freeze down the pipe before it has a chance to freeze. The washing machine hose itself fits way down that 2" section of pipe that still extends above floor level w/o any attending problems.
So apparently the sometimes infamous Luck of the Irish ran north this time. But nobody except a masochist would want to use ice melting salt on an ice jam in a pipe. One of the worst ideas I ever had, no matter how clever it seemed until I did it. Live and learn.
= new reply since forum marked as read