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Icicles hanging from a snowy window frame

Ice in the Line, Water Nowhere

Frozen Pipe Thawing for Newmarket Homes

A tap that barely dribbles, or stays dry, on a frigid morning usually means ice has formed somewhere in the line. Thawing it gently, before it splits, is the goal, and the sooner the better.

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  • Older Main Street homes and newer subdivisions alike
  • Floors covered and the work area wiped down after
  • The fault shown to you at the pipe before any work starts
  • A plumber on the line when you call, not a call centre
  • Licensed trade plumbers
  • 7-day call line
  • Newmarket & York Region
  • Residential & commercial
Service
Frozen Pipe Thawing
Category
Pipes and leaks
Where
Newmarket and nearby York Region
Booking
By telephone

Clues that point to frozen pipe thawing

  • One tap or one bathroom is dry while the others work.
  • Frost or ice visible on an exposed pipe.
  • The washing machine cannot fill on a cold day.
  • An outdoor-wall kitchen sink with no cold water, only hot.

What you can safely try

Open the affected tap so melting ice has somewhere to go. Warm the room: open cabinet doors under the sink, raise the thermostat, and point a space heater into the area while staying nearby. A hair dryer on low, moved slowly along a pipe you can see, is fine. Start at the tap end and work back.

Bench note

Never use a torch, a heat gun on high or any open flame. Flames start fires inside walls, and overheating a frozen pipe can make it burst.

Our method, in order

  1. Find the frozen section using a thermal camera and the route of the pipe.
  2. Thaw with controlled heat: heat tape, warm air or an electric pipe thawing unit suited to the material.
  3. Watch for leaks as pressure returns, since ice may already have split the pipe.
  4. Repair any splits on the spot.
  5. Recommend changes so it does not freeze again.

Newmarket houses and this job

Certain spots freeze again and again. The kitchen sink on an outside wall, the laundry supply in an unheated garage corner, the line feeding a bathroom over a cantilevered bay window. Plenty of houses from the 1970s and 1980s have one of these. Insulating and sealing the rim joist from inside the basement helps a great deal.

Rural homes add another risk: the water line from a well, or the pipe through a crawl space, can freeze when the ground frost goes deep in a long cold spell. Heat cable on a thermostat is a common answer there.

Lasting fixes we offer

  • Insulation and air sealing around vulnerable pipe runs
  • Thermostatic heat cable where pipes cannot be moved
  • Rerouting a short run to a warmer interior wall
  • Frost-free outdoor taps

Call before it splits

If you cannot reach the frozen section or the weather keeps dropping, call us. If you already see water, close the main valve and read burst pipe repair. For prevention, see protecting pipes through winter.

Phoned-in questions

How long does it take for a pipe to freeze?

It depends on insulation, wind and how cold it is, but an exposed pipe in a drafty spot can freeze overnight during a deep cold snap.

Should I leave taps dripping?

On the coldest nights, a slow trickle from a tap on an exterior wall helps keep water moving and makes freezing less likely.

Keep reading

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