Burst pipes, who got them?

[Vil_Riker]

The cold water pipe for the shower runs above the kitchen ceiling. It froze on Thursday and burst on Saturday as the weather warmed. Luckily it was during the day and we were quick to turn off the supply. No major flooding, was early enough in the day for me to buy the supplies from the store and get it fixed. The last time I had done soldering of pipes was more than a decade ago but still had the skills.

The ceiling needs to be repaired - it's textured and I will need to remove it and reapply the texture. What a pain.

 

[Greasymechtech]

Froze but didn't burst. Got lucky. Think the copper here has gotten use to the 'ballooning' as needed. Not the 1st time frozen. But, we set all the faucets to a slow drip anytime the temp drops below freezin'

 

[BigCahuna]

I hope you insulated it when you had the ceiling open.,,

 

[Vil_Riker]

I hope you insulated it when you had the ceiling open.,,

It's still open but yes, it will be insulated.

 

[RDY4WAR]

I got really lucky. I forgot about the faucet in my backyard that has ~1.5 ft of exposed PVC sticking out of the ground. I went to open it Saturday and the valve wouldn't turn. Completely frozen, but hadn't busted. I grabbed an extension cord and thawed it out with a heat gun until it started flowing. I left it dripping from then on.

A friend down the road wasn't so lucky. He had 2 pipes bust, and the local ACE is out of the fittings he needs as so many others have busted. He had to drive 40 minutes away to the next closest hardware store (Lowes) to get what he needs, and they had limited inventory.

 

[Delta]

First real cold at the new house this year, and it looks like everything was done well. I did install a new frost free spigot out front as the old one was leaking pretty bad. Made sure it was properly angled. The other one is on the back of the house and the connection inside is hidden under ceiling tile that is difficult to move since the main line going to the septic is right there right up against the tile. I guess in an emergency I could cut out the tile and cap off the copper line. I try and keep various copper and PEX fittings in my kit along with a Sharkbite cap in a complete emergency.

I know some of you are saying since I live in PA everything should be ok, but honestly we rarely get down to the temps we had. It was 3° one night. Even the side door on in the garage didn't want to shut right.

 

[Rat407]

Nothing here thankfully. House has Pex and I understand it is forgiving when it freezes. I just hope not to find out.

 

[mrsilv04]

Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a good cold snap to figure out where your weaknesses are. The good news is, once you successfully correct whatever allowed it to freeze, it shouldn't happen again.

Several years back, I went through an ice storm (along with severe cold and high wind) for three days with a broken furnace, and didn't have any pipes that froze. I'd say I'm good to go from here on out.

 

[gman2304]

Mine have not frozen in 30 years in my house but I did a walk around last week, just to be sure all was well. Checked my foundation vents and outside spigots and everything held up well considering it got down to 6 degrees F Saturday morning.

 

[zzyzzx]

Even with no heat on my house it never gets below 50. So no.

 

[wpod]

Pex is your friend.

 

[Escape08]

The worst thing that could ever happen you'd got burst water pipes in the house and you went to all the hardware stores but they all completely ran out.

 

[ripcord]

Last year we had the line from the street freeze in our crawl space right where it came out of the ground. Luckily I was able to catch it right when it thawed and started spraying at a broken joint. Luckily it was easy to reach and I had a spare fitting so had it fixed and insulated better in a short while. I didn't even get wet.

 

[samven]

Something I could never figure out is why builder want to run pipes along outside walls and why people want to stuff insulation around them that only insulates them from the warm inside air and never behind them to stop the cold.

 

[AZjeff]

Pex is your friend.

It's the fittings that break. Our whole house is Pex so I read up on it. At fittings Pex is expanded to it's limit or close so it will split or the joint will burst if it freezes hard.

 

[Rand]

usually the pipes burst from the spike in water pressure caused by the freezing not the actual freezing.

So even slow drip will dissipate that over time.

 

[JRed]

Got down to five degrees with 45 mph winds here and nothing froze, even in the old ~1920s farmhouse. Three 100 watt bulbs hanging from the pipes in the crawl space does wonders. Too much piping to wrap with heat tape.

 

[tyman]

We did back in May. Took until October until basement was completely fixed. Absolute pain working with State Farm

 

[clinebarger]

My neighbor has a broken pipe, Flooded his crawl space & backyard. He called me over......Still had the patch I helped him with after the February '21 storm, It pi**ed me off that he did absolutely nothing to correct the issue & I declined to help him (More like me do all the work) this time! Can't help when you can't help yourself.

His Kitchen Sink is on a outside wall & the wall is not insulated. He ripped off all the insulated siding a few years ago. Told him to remove the new siding, Remove the original wood shiplap & Insulate the wall.

 

[ATex7239]

All good here. Left the outdoor stuff dripping and the inside stuff was fine cause we didn’t lose power. I was worried though. It got down to 10F with a windchill of -8F. In Texas that is like apocalyptic weather conditions.