Frozen Pipes & Seasonal Prevention
The cheap ten-minute jobs that prevent the expensive 2am ones.
Why frozen pipes burst at the thaw, not the freeze
Water expands about 9% as it freezes. In a sealed pipe that expansion has nowhere to go, so pressure builds between the ice plug and the nearest closed tap until something splits, usually a joint, usually somewhere you cannot see. Nothing leaks while it is frozen, because the ice is plugging its own hole. The flood arrives when it thaws, which is why our busiest day of a cold snap is the day it ends.
The October checklist
Lag every pipe in an unheated space, loft, garage, under a suspended ground floor, and the external condensate pipe from the boiler. Fix dripping taps, because a drip is how an ice plug starts. Find your stopcock and turn it twice so it does not seize. If the house will be empty, leave the heating on low rather than off. Under an hour of work, and it prevents the large majority of what we attend in January.
If they freeze anyway
Turn the stopcock off first, before you thaw anything, then open the nearest cold tap to give melt water somewhere to go. Thaw gently from the tap end backwards with a hair dryer on low, warm towels or hot-water bottles. Never a blowtorch or a heat gun: rapid heating can burst the pipe outright and has set fire to more than one loft. Have towels down before you start, because if it has already split you will find out as it melts.
The condensate pipe: the most common winter lockout
Modern condensing boilers drain acidic condensate through a plastic pipe, and where that pipe runs outside it freezes and locks the boiler out. Pouring warm water along its length usually brings the boiler straight back with a reset. Lagging it, or having it rerouted internally, stops it recurring, and it is the single most frequent no-heat callout of any cold snap.
Prevention that pays the rest of the year
Exercise the stopcock twice a year. Service the boiler in September rather than October, when everybody else books. Clear the gutters after leaf-fall, because rainwater that misses the gutter ends up in the wall. And in hard-water London, deal with scale before it reaches the heat exchanger. None of it is interesting. All of it is cheaper than what it prevents.
Ten minutes in November that prevent the two most expensive January callouts.
The changes that genuinely cut water and heating costs, ranked by payback.
When black mould is a leak, when it is condensation, and how to tell before spending money.
Fifteen minutes a year that catches the failures before they choose their own timing.
Five minutes at the door that prevents coming home to a swimming pool.
How do I stop my pipes freezing?
What do I do if a pipe has already frozen?
At what temperature do pipes freeze?
My boiler stopped working in the cold snap.
Water where it
shouldn't be? Call.
A person answers, not a menu. You'll have an arrival time and a price range before you hang up.
020 3674 8514Or WhatsApp 07865 292684, photos help us bring the right parts
