If there’s a cold spell on the horizon and a risk your pipes will freeze here are some steps you can take to protect your property and save yourself a lot of disruption and stress.
Most Irish homes have inflexible piping that are strong enough to withstand most common forces. However, no matter how tough pipes are, if the contents freeze it will exert pressure on the pipe, eventually causing it to burst.
Pipes that are likely to freeze are:
- Pipes in poorly insulated areas such as attics or garages
- Pipes against external walls with little insulation
- External pipes e.g. water pipes for sprinklers
All homes are at risk during cold weather but poorly insulated homes, or homes that are often left empty, are at even higher risk.
As with many water related issues in the home, once you realise there’s a problem it’s often too late to stop the damage.
If your water suddenly stops during a cold spell you’re likely facing a frozen pipe, or worse a burst pipe. Upon thawing burst pipes can cause serious damage to your home, its contents and even your electrical wiring.
Steps you can take to prevent pipes from freezing:
Regular boiler service
The last thing you want during a cold spell is for your boiler to fail. Regular servicing keeps your boiler in tip-top shape and makes heating your home straightforward. Keeping the heating on during a cold spell means the water in internal pipes stay at a constant temperature and are not able to get cold enough to freeze.
Going away? Turn off your water
If you’re leaving your property unoccupied for a long period of time you should turn off your water before you leave.
Your Stopcock controls the mains water supply into your home, it’s usually located under your sink (if you’re not sure where to locate it, you can find out more here). Or if you have a smart water security system like Leak Watch simply turn off the water supply from your phone.
Keep the heat on
If you’re in your house during a cold spell, you’ll probably have the heating on. But if you’re heading away don’t immediately switch the thermostat to off.
You don’t need to keep your thermostat as high as you normally would keep it if you were actually present; keeping it above 13C is sufficient. This should provide enough heat to keep the pipes inside warm and prevent freezing.
Open doors
Open the doors in your home to allow warm air to circulate. This includes your kitchen cabinets that contain pipe work and your attic hatch – if you have one. Keeping an open flow of warm air will allow all areas of the house to heat more effectively and keep the temperature high enough to avoid freezing.
Keep taps running
Although it goes against everything we know about water conservation, if you’re concerned about pipes freezing during a cold spell you can let your hot and cold taps slowly run until temperatures rise again. Moving water will not freeze so even a small trickle of water running through pipes helps to prevent freezing and keeps things moving until the cold spell is over. Due to water wastage we only recommend this measure in extreme circumstances.
What to do if it happens
If the worst has happened and your pipes are frozen take the following steps to minimise the damage:
Find the damaged pipe
Sometimes finding the damaged pipe can be the hardest part. One trick is to try and run all the taps in your home one by one. If water is not coming out of a particular tap, trace the plumbing back away from the tap as far as you can, feeling with your hands until you find the affected area (the pipe will feel ice cold and potentially have a thin coating of ice).
If there’s no water coming to any of your taps, the problem may be your mains supply pipe.
Limit the damage
Once you’ve found the affected area of pipework, or even if you haven’t managed to find it you should turn off the water supply as instructed above. You should then drain the system by turning on all the cold water taps and flushing the toilets. At this point, DO NOT flush hot taps.
Next switch off the central heating and immersion. If you use solid fuel, let it die out.
When the water heating is completely off, you can now turn on the hot taps to further drain the system.
Note: If water from a burst pipe is leaking near any sockets, switches or appliances, switch off the mains if it is safe to do so. If the switch is wet, do not touch it, instead call a qualified electrician.
If you have a shared water supply e.g. if you live in an apartment complex, ensure you have access to the stop cock. This is usually located where the water supply enters the building. You should always check with your neighbours that turning off the water has not affected their supply.
If necessary thaw the pipe
If temperatures are due to rise soon and you cannot get a plumber out quickly you may need to thaw the pipe yourself. If you find yourself in this situation, follow the steps below.
Step 1: Turn off the water
You’ve probably already done this, but we’ll mention it again just to be sure. Before moving starting to thaw any pipes ensure your water supply is turned off.
Step 2: Apply heat
You can use a variety of ways to apply heat to the pipe. Some people crank up their thermostat or use hairdryers or fan heaters pointed towards the section of pipe. While others wrap the pipes in towels and pour hot water over them to gently heat the pipe up. Depending on what method you use it will take time and require patience.
The method you choose will be dependent on the equipment you have on hand or the access you have to the pipe, there’s no one method that’s better than another. However, when you do apply heat to the pipe your technique is important. Begin at the edge closest to the nearest kitchen or bathroom so melted water within the pipe can escape and slowly move along the pipe until it’s entirely thawed.
Step 3: Turn the water back on
Once you’re confident that the frozen part of the pipe has thawed, partially turn your mains water supply back on and keep an eye on the section of the pipe that was frozen to see if there are any leaks.
If everything looks good, you can go ahead and turn the water supply back on and close any open taps.
If the pipe is compromised, turn off the supply again and move to the repair stage.
Get it repaired
You can make a temporary repair to a burst pipe by binding it tightly with a cloth or tape but you should replace this as soon as possible by a permanent repair, carried out by a qualified and registered plumber.
You can now turn the water supply back on. Ensure your hot water system is refilled BEFORE you switch back on your immersion or boiler.
