Our busiest 48 hours of any year are the two days after the first hard freeze. The calls cluster, and they cluster in the same places: garage walls, crawlspaces, vacant rentals, and the bathroom on the north side of the house that always ran cold.
If you know where your house is vulnerable, an afternoon in November is cheaper than a week in January.
The ice is not what breaks the pipe
Water expands about nine percent as it freezes, but a pipe rarely splits at the ice itself. An ice plug forms, then continued freezing pushes water ahead of the plug against a closed faucet or valve. Pressure spikes in that trapped section and the pipe fails at its weakest point — which is often several feet away from the cold spot, in a warm part of the house.
Two consequences follow. First, letting a faucet trickle works because it gives that pressure somewhere to go. Second, the puddle in the finished basement may be nowhere near the pipe that actually froze.
The worst damage happens on the thaw. A frozen split leaks nothing while it is frozen. When the sun comes out, or the furnace catches up, a quarter-inch opening on a pressurized line delivers hundreds of gallons an hour into a house nobody is watching.
- Garage and rim-joist runs. Supply lines routed through an unheated garage wall or along an uninsulated rim joist, often to serve a laundry sink or a hose bib.
- Hose bibs and outdoor spigots. A hose left connected traps water against the valve. The split shows up inside the wall.
- Crawlspaces. Vented crawls with thin insulation and a wind path. Common on older Fenton, Linden and Goodrich properties.
- Exterior-wall kitchens and baths. Pipes run on the cold side of the insulation instead of the warm side — a framing shortcut you cannot see.
- Vacant and seasonal properties. Thermostat set to 50, a furnace that quits, and nobody in the building for a week. These become the largest losses we see, residential or commercial.
Before the cold comes
- Disconnect every hose and drain the bibs. This one takes ten minutes and prevents a real percentage of our winter calls.
- Insulate accessible runs in garages, crawls and unheated basements — foam sleeves at minimum, heat tape where a run cannot be avoided.
- Seal the air leaks feeding the cold spot: rim joist gaps, crawlspace vents, the hole where the cable line comes in.
- Know where your main shutoff is, and make sure it turns. Test it now, not at 2 a.m.
- Traveling? Hold the thermostat at 60 or above, open cabinet doors under sinks, and have somebody check the house every couple of days.
When a deep freeze is forecast, leave the faucet on the most vulnerable fixture at a pencil-thin trickle overnight, cold side. The water bill will be trivial next to a claim deductible.
A frozen pipe is a plumbing problem. A thawed frozen pipe in an empty house is a restoration project.
If a faucet runs dry in a cold snap
No water at one fixture on a cold morning means a line is frozen somewhere upstream. Treat it as an active situation, not an inconvenience.
Leave that faucet open. It relieves pressure and tells you the moment flow returns.
Find the main shutoff and stand near it. If the pipe has already split, you will know within seconds of the thaw.
Warm it gently. Space heater aimed at the cabinet, hair dryer along the accessible run, warm towels. Never an open flame or a torch — that is how frozen-pipe calls become fire calls.
If water appears, shut the main and call. Extraction and drying should start the same day — wet walls in a heated house are on the mold clock immediately.
We answer at 2 a.m. in February
Cold-snap weeks are the reason we run 24/7 dispatch instead of an answering service. On site within two to four hours across Genesee County and Metro Detroit, with extraction and drying equipment on the truck — and the documentation your carrier will ask for later, started the same night.
Shut the main, then call. We dispatch day or night, every day of the winter.