This winter was very harsh throughout the country. Many areas that do not see cold winters are experiencing freezing temperatures for more than a few days at a time. This means that inevitably there are people who are having their pipes freeze. Unfortunately, in these areas the houses were not designed for those types of temperatures and the heating pipes will freeze and burst.
When a pipe bursts it can ruin your appliances and even your cabinets among other things in your kitchen. If you do not catch yourself and flood the kitchen or other areas of the home, you will need to hire a professional such as Woodard Cleaning and Restoration. In this article, we will go over what to do if your pipes freeze so that you can minimize the damage.
Unplug the kitchen sink
If you’re lucky, you only have frozen pipes in the kitchen sink. You are more in control when dealing with frozen domestic water pipes. Heating pipes are more complicated and the burst pipe can be difficult to find.
You know your kitchen sink pipes are frozen when you turn on the faucet and no water comes out. You still run the risk of water flooding when the pipes eventually loosen, so make sure you get to the problem quickly to avoid further damage.
Keep the faucet on so the water can start flowing once things settle down while you look for the source of the problem. You can get very lucky and the pipe may be frozen but still not burst. The reason why heating pipes often burst when they freeze is that the closed loop of the system does not allow the water to go anywhere.
In this case, the water has little room to move and expand. However, you still need to be careful just in case. The trick here is to find out where exactly the pipes are frozen.
You need access to the pipe so you can literally run your hand over it feeling for the coldest part. When you find the place that feels the coldest, it is likely to be a plug of ice blocking the drain. Take a hairdryer and heat the pipe until you see that there is water coming out of the faucet. If the place is wet then it will probably burst and you will need to call a plumber.
The heater pipes
To reduce damage to the kitchen or other areas of the home, you need to find out if a pipe bursts on your heating pipes. Shut off the water supply to the house to make sure that when the pipes come loose you don’t have an eruption of water spraying everywhere.
Physically inspect the pipes that you can see and note where there is swelling. You can see exactly where the pipe tear is. If you don’t see any then you should be ok to disconnect. Get some heating tape which you simply wrap around the pipes. It will slowly melt the ice inside and allow the water to flow through.
Then, be sure to check for any areas where a puddle has formed as this means there is a leak there. Then, call a plumber to replace that section of pipe.
