How to keep your pipes from freezing in North Alabama
Before a hard freeze, disconnect your garden hoses, close the crawlspace vents, insulate any pipe you can see in the crawlspace or garage, open the sink cabinets on outside walls, and let the faucets on outside walls drip. Keep the heat on and steady, day and night, even if you’re out of town. If a pipe freezes anyway, open the faucet it feeds and warm the pipe gently with a hair dryer. Never use an open flame.
Why do pipes freeze here if winters are mild?
Because they’re mild most of the time. North Alabama gets a few hard freezes most winters and a serious cold snap every few years, and in between it’s easy to forget the pipes are out there at all. A lot of houses here weren’t built with much thought for real cold.
These are the pipes that usually freeze:
- Pipes in the crawlspace, especially near a foundation vent where cold air blows right across them
- Supply lines inside outside walls, like a kitchen sink under a window
- Pipes in an unheated garage, including the lines to a water heater out there
- Outside spigots
- Sprinkler backflow devices sitting above ground in the yard
As a rule of thumb, start paying attention when the forecast drops into the low 20s, or when it’s going to stay below freezing all day. Wind makes it worse, especially when it’s blowing straight into crawlspace vents.
What should you do before a cold snap?
Most of this takes an afternoon, and most of it you only do once a year.
- Disconnect garden hoses. A hose left on the spigot traps water, and even a frost-free spigot can’t drain with a hose attached. Put a foam cover over each one.
- Close the crawlspace vents, or block them with foam vent covers. Open them back up once the weather warms so the crawlspace can dry out.
- Insulate exposed pipe in the crawlspace, garage and attic. Foam pipe sleeves from the hardware store slide right on. Heat tape can help on a spot that freezes every year, as long as it’s made for your kind of pipe and installed per its directions.
- Open the cabinet doors under sinks on outside walls so the heat from the house can get to the pipes.
- Drip the faucets on outside walls, hot and cold both. A slow, steady drip is plenty. Moving water is much harder to freeze, and if ice does form, the open faucet gives the pressure somewhere to go.
- Keep the thermostat steady. Skip the overnight setback when it’s this cold.
- Shut off and drain the sprinkler system, and wrap or cover the backflow device.
- Keep the garage door closed if there are pipes or a water heater in there.
What if you’re leaving town?
Leave the heat on. Don’t set it lower than about 55 degrees, and leave the cabinet doors open under the sinks on outside walls.
For a longer trip in the middle of winter, shut off the main water and open a couple of faucets to drain the lines. Then there’s nothing left in the pipes to freeze and nothing to pour out if one cracks. Turn the water heater off too, either at its breaker for an electric one or with the gas control set to pilot. If you’re not sure where your main is, here’s how to find it. If a hard freeze hits while you’re gone, ask a neighbor to walk through the house.
What if a pipe is already frozen?
You’ll usually find out on a cold morning when you turn on a faucet and get a trickle or nothing, while the rest of the house works fine. Sometimes you can see frost on an exposed pipe in the crawlspace.
- Open the faucet the frozen pipe feeds, hot and cold. As the ice starts to melt, running water helps melt the rest.
- Find the frozen section. It’s usually wherever the pipe is most exposed, like near a foundation vent or along an outside wall.
- Warm it gently. Use a hair dryer or towels soaked in hot water wrapped around the pipe. If you use a heat lamp, keep it well away from insulation and wood, and don’t leave it running unattended. Start near the faucet and work back toward the cold spot. Keep anything electric away from standing water.
- Keep at it until full pressure comes back. Then look over the whole run of pipe for drips.
No open flame. Ever. No torch, no lighter, no propane heater in the crawlspace. A torch on a frozen pipe is a common way houses catch fire, and heating a pipe that fast can damage it. If the frozen section is inside a wall or somewhere you can’t reach, call a plumber.
When should you shut the water off instead?
If you can see a split, a bulge or a crack in the pipe, shut off the main before you thaw anything. A pipe that cracked while frozen usually won’t leak until it thaws, and then it lets go all at once. The same goes if you can’t find the frozen spot at all. Shut off the main, open a faucet, and call a plumber.
If water’s already coming out, go straight to what to do in the first 15 minutes of a burst pipe.
After any hard freeze, take a flashlight into the crawlspace once it warms up. A small drip you catch that afternoon is a much easier fix than the puddle you find a week later.