Electric Pipe Thawing has been successful in Ottawa, Can., according to City Engineer Newton J. Ker. Current is taken from the wires of the Ottawa Electric Light Co. and reduced by transformers to about 25 volts. The company charges $1.50 an hour for current and apparatus. One wire is connected to the service in the house and the other to the stopcock box in the street, an adjoining service or the nearest street hydrant, the object being to have a connection on either side of the frozen section and as close to it as possible. The electric current sometimes cleared the pipe in thirty seconds, but if the service was long and frozen solid it varied from that to thirty minutes. Where couplings with a leather washer are used at the stopcock boxes the current will burn out the washer and cause a slight leak. Where the coupling used is of brass and lead the current causes no leak and no damage is occasioned the service, except in isolated and difficult cases where more than 2.1 volts are used.