When you get temperatures that drop below the freezing point, you always have the potential for frozen pipes. The colder it gets, the bigger that chance is. And, if you spend a day or two away from your home, you really up your chances of having a pipe freeze, especially if you aren’t doing any preventative maintenance.

If you find yourself in the unlucky position that you are more sure than not that you do have a frozen pipe, here are a few steps to take to try and fix the problem.

Find What Pipe is Frozen

When you turn on your faucet and nothing happens, you know you have a problem. But, in more cases than not, the frozen pipe causing the problem is just that: a single frozen pipe.

Before you can take any real steps into getting your water flowing again, you need to do a little detective work to try and locate where the problem is.

This isn’t always an easy process. Your best bet is to head to the basement and look at any exposed pipes you can find. If you see one with a bit of frost on the outside, you may have found your culprit. Additionally, look for a pipe with some physical distortion like a slight bulge.

Open Your Taps

It may sound contradictory at first, especially since when you first opened your faucet you didn’t get any water, but the next step of trying to get your water flowing again is opening your faucets. The frozen water in your pipes needs somewhere to go, and by keeping the line open, you also relieve pressure in the system.

You want to make sure to have both the cold and hot taps open. If you’re lucky, you may start to get a trickle of water moving through the system, which can eventually thaw the blockage on its own.

Warm Up the Home

Many people will incorrectly attempt to try and warm up an affected pipe by applying direct heat. While this can work, it’s also very risky. If done improperly you can make the pipe burst and that’s the last thing you want.

Instead, try to slowly increase the temperature of the house overall. If the frozen pipe is in an unfinished basement you may need to use a space heater to achieve this. But, the indirect heat is going to be much safer than direct heat.

Call a Professional

When in doubt, it’s always a good idea to call in a professional plumber. Improperly thawing a frozen pipe can cause it to burst, which is very expensive and problematic. If you make the mistake of using something like a blowtorch to apply direct heat, you also run the risk of causing a fire.

Getting a professional plumber that handles emergencies to come in and help get everything working properly is safe and can be much cheaper over the long term.

In Summary

Frozen pipes are a big deal. If handled improperly, you can have a serious and very expensive mess on your hands.

Do what you can to safely try and fix the problem, but if it doesn’t work, get professional help.

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