My kitchen pipes froze a few years ago. They run right along the sill in the basement. A hair dryer did nothing. It was really cold then. So I pulled out my propane torch, and as I'm torching away, I looked at the dry, seasoned wooden sill, about 3/4" behind the pipe and wondered just how long it would take for that to catch...

I didn't really need running water in the kitchen all that badly.

McJulie