Burst and Frozen Pipe Repair in Port Orchard, Kitsap, Pierce and Mason Counties

Why pipes burst here, and where

Water expands roughly nine percent when it freezes, and ice forming inside a closed pipe pushes the trapped water toward the nearest closed valve or faucet. The pressure in that pocket climbs until something gives. The pipe usually splits not at the ice plug but somewhere between the plug and the faucet, which is why a line that froze in the crawlspace can burst inside a bathroom wall.

Around Puget Sound the lines that freeze are the ones in contact with outside air: supply runs through vented crawlspaces, especially where the vent screens face north or the insulation has fallen off; pipes in garage walls serving a laundry or a hose bib; lines to a bathroom addition built over a porch; water heater and well tank piping in detached pump houses; and the riser where the service line comes up out of the ground. Older Bremerton and Port Orchard homes with plumbing on exterior walls are especially exposed.

Copper splits lengthwise and shows a clean rip once it thaws. PEX is forgiving and usually survives a freeze, but the brass or plastic fittings on it do not. Polyethylene well lines fail at the fittings too. Galvanized steel cracks at the threads. Each material tells a different story when we see it, and the photo on this page of a split copper line is typical of what a crawlspace freeze looks like.

Thawing a frozen pipe without making it worse

If a faucet produces nothing or a trickle during a cold snap and the rest of the house works, you likely have an ice plug in one line. Open the affected faucet fully, both hot and cold, so that melting water and pressure have somewhere to go. Then find the coldest stretch of that line and warm it gently: a hair dryer, a space heater pointed at a crawlspace vent, towels soaked in hot water wrapped around the pipe. Work from the faucet back toward the plug so meltwater can escape.

Never use an open flame. A propane torch on a frozen copper line boils the trapped water into steam and can burst the pipe in your hands, and it has started house fires in crawlspaces full of dry insulation. We use electric pipe-thawing equipment on metal lines, which passes a low-voltage current through the pipe itself and warms it evenly from the inside. On PEX and poly we use heat and patience.

Once water flows, do not assume you are done. Leave the faucet running a little, walk the house, and listen for hissing or dripping in walls and ceilings. The split, if there is one, will show now that pressure is back. Shut the main off the moment you hear water where it should not be.

What to do in the first ten minutes after a burst

Shut off the water. The main valve is usually where the service line enters the house, in a crawlspace, garage, utility room or a box near the foundation. On a well, kill the breaker to the pump as well. If the valve is a gate valve that will not turn, which is common on older homes, the meter box at the street has a curb stop that a meter key or a long screwdriver can close in a pinch.

Open the lowest faucet in the house to drain the lines and take pressure off the split. Turn off the breaker or gas to the water heater if the house is going to be drained for long, because an electric element or a gas burner firing on an empty tank will destroy it. Move what you can out from under the leak and get towels or a bucket under the drip.

Then call. We will tell you whether this is a tonight job or a first-thing-tomorrow job, and we will say so plainly. A ceiling that is sagging with water needs to be drained before it comes down; the photo on this page shows what happens when it is not. A split in a crawlspace line with the water already shut off can usually wait until morning without any more damage.

• Close the main shutoff, or the curb stop at the meter if the house valve is stuck
• On a well, switch off the pump breaker
• Open a low faucet to drain the lines
• Cut power or gas to the water heater if the system will be drained for hours
• Poke a small hole in a sagging ceiling over a bucket to let the water out before the drywall fails
• Photograph the damage before cleaning up, for your insurance claim

How we repair a burst line

With the water off, we find every split, not just the one that announced itself. After a freeze we pressure test the house in sections, because a second crack in a line that has not yet been pressurized is the leak you discover a week after the plumber leaves. We open walls and ceilings only where the test and the listening gear say to.

Copper is cut back to clean, round pipe on both sides of the split and a new section is soldered in, or joined with press fittings when soldering near wet framing is not safe. PEX gets a new section with expansion or crimp fittings. A failed fitting is replaced, and a run that has frozen more than once is rerouted to a warmer path or replaced in PEX, which tolerates ice far better than copper. Everything is pressure tested before the water comes back on.

While we are there we look at why it froze. Missing insulation, an open crawlspace vent facing the wind, a hose left on a bib, a pump house with no heat tape. Fixing the cause is usually a small add-on to the repair, and it is the difference between seeing us once and seeing us every January.

Keeping it from happening again

Most freeze damage in Kitsap, Pierce and Mason County is preventable with an afternoon of work before the cold arrives. Foam sleeves on every exposed line in the crawlspace and garage, with the joints taped. Crawlspace vents closed or covered for the cold weeks. Hoses disconnected from hose bibs and the bibs themselves replaced with frost-free models that shut off inside the wall. Heat tape, properly rated and plugged in, on any line that has frozen before. A trickle of water left running at the farthest faucet on the coldest nights, which keeps water moving and relieves pressure.

Detached structures need their own plan. A well house, a shop with a utility sink, a cabin on Hood Canal that sits empty midweek: each needs insulation, a heat source, or a drain-down routine. For second homes we often install a smart shutoff that closes the main and sends a phone alert when it sees flow at three in the morning. We lay out these options when we close up the repair, and you choose what makes sense.