{"id":2070,"date":"2018-04-02T11:00:20","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T15:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/?p=2070"},"modified":"2021-11-22T13:53:51","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T19:53:51","slug":"help-pipes-froze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/plumbing-service\/help-pipes-froze\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Help! My Pipes Froze, What Do I Do?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2072\" src=\"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Help-My-Pipes-Froze-What-Do-I-Do-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Icicles hanging from a brown pipe. Frozen water and metal surface, winter time concept. selective focus shallow depth of field photo\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Help-My-Pipes-Froze-What-Do-I-Do-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Help-My-Pipes-Froze-What-Do-I-Do-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Help-My-Pipes-Froze-What-Do-I-Do.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Overall, our winter was relatively mild this year, with the coldest of temperatures lasting just a few days at a time. Still though, we did have freezing temperatures, and with freezing weather comes frozen pipes.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully, you did what you could to prevent this problem from affecting your household. For example, one preventive step you might have taken was to open any outdoor faucets used for sprinklers and hoses, and turned off all water flow to these points. After all, the pipes located outside are, understandably, the ones most susceptible to freezing, and leaving the faucets opened helps water to drain from them.<!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>\u201cShould I Worry If I Took Preventive Measures?\u201d<\/h2>\n<p>There are a number of pipes in your home that are vulnerable to freezing even if they aren\u2019t outside. This includes plenty of pipes that have to remain in use all winter long\u2014pipes under your sinks, in crawlspaces, and even in basements. In order to thoroughly protect these pipes, we advise that you insulate them using sleeves that can be found at any hardware store.<\/p>\n<p>But this isn\u2019t a 100% guarantee that your pipes won\u2019t freeze. And if yours <em>did, <\/em>then it\u2019s time to call in a professional <a href=\"\/service-areas\/waverly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">plumber in Waverly, IA<\/a>. Frozen pipes are a bigger deal than many homeowners realize\u2014water won\u2019t flow, your pipes are at risk of bursting, and you can find yourself facing a huge plumbing repair nightmare, plus significant property damage.<\/p>\n<h2>The Danger of Burst Pipes<\/h2>\n<p>Water expands in volume when it freezes, since the molecular structure of ice is different than liquid water (it\u2019s hexagonal in shape). So it takes up a lot of space in your plumbing\u2014but that alone isn\u2019t what causes frozen pipes to burst. It\u2019s certainly part of it, but what causes the pipes to burst is the pressure buildup that occurs during the freezing process.<\/p>\n<p>The water freezes and expands, while pushing out any remaining water. But if your faucets are closed, there\u2019s nowhere for the water to go, thus creating more and more pressure\u2014eventually this leads to lateral bursting along your pipes.<\/p>\n<h2>\u201cCan I Thaw My Pipes Myself?\u201d<\/h2>\n<p>There have been too many stories of homeowners trying to thaw frozen pipes only to end up with a flooding mess, property damage, and even injury. That\u2019s because the risk of burst pipes is actually higher during the thawing process than the freezing process.<\/p>\n<p>Do not use a hair dryer (this is ineffective at best, and can lead to electrocution at worst), a space heater, or a blow torch (yes, people have tried it). The best thing you can do is to give a professional plumber a call. With years of experience and specialized tools, we can effectively thaw your pipes without any danger to your property or any person in your household.<\/p>\n<p>What you<em> can <\/em>do, to relieve pressure on your frozen pipes until our plumbers can get there, is open up any faucets at the end of your frozen pipes. You may be able to prevent ruptured plumbing this way.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>At Dalton Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, Electric and Fireplaces, Inc., your comfort is our promise! To set up an appointment, give us a call at the number above, email customerservice@daltonphc.com or <a href=\"\/about\/schedule-service#content\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">schedule an appointment online<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are a number of pipes in your home that are vulnerable to freezing even if they aren\u2019t outside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[324,81],"tags":[249,228,250,142],"class_list":["post-2070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cedar-falls","category-plumbing-service","tag-frozen-pipes","tag-plumber","tag-thawing-frozen-pipes","tag-waverly"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2070"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2074,"href":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070\/revisions\/2074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daltonphc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}