Every January, our emergency plumbing lines light up with the same call: a pipe froze overnight, thawed by mid-morning, and now water is pouring through a ceiling. A single burst supply line can release hundreds of gallons before anyone finds the shutoff valve. The frustrating part, from where we sit, is that nearly every one of these failures is preventable — usually with an afternoon of simple work.
Washington's freeze risk is sneaky. West of the Cascades, winters are mild enough that homes aren't built with extreme cold in mind — so when a cold snap does arrive, pipes in crawl spaces and exterior walls from Tacoma to Seattle are exposed. East of the mountains, Spokane-area homes face weeks of sustained freezing where any gap in protection eventually gets found. Different climates, same physics: water expands about 9% when it freezes, and no pipe material tolerates that pressure forever.
Know which pipes freeze first
Pipes don't freeze randomly. The repeat offenders are hose bibbs (outdoor faucets) with hoses still attached, uninsulated lines in crawl spaces and unheated garages, supply lines running through exterior walls — especially kitchen sinks on outside walls — and anything in an attic or above an unheated ceiling. If you've had one freeze scare in a specific spot, that spot will freeze again. Protect it first.
What actually works
Start outside. Disconnect every garden hose before the first hard frost — a connected hose traps water in the bibb and freezes it backward into the wall. Install insulated faucet covers; they cost a few dollars and prevent the single most common freeze failure we repair. If your home has interior shutoffs for exterior faucets, close them and drain the bibbs.
In the crawl space, insulate exposed supply lines with foam pipe sleeves — cheap, effective, and a one-hour job in most homes. Close crawl-space vents during hard freezes (open them again when temperatures recover). For chronic problem areas, thermostatically controlled heat cable is the reliable fix; it only draws power when the pipe actually needs it.
During a cold snap: open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls so room heat reaches the pipes, let a pencil-thin stream of cold water run at the fixture furthest from your meter (moving water resists freezing), and keep the house heated to at least 55°F even if you're away. If you leave town for the winter, have the system professionally winterized — it's a fraction of the cost of one ceiling repair.
If a pipe freezes anyway
No water at one fixture during a freeze usually means ice in the line. Act before it bursts: keep the faucet open, and warm the suspect section with a hair dryer or heating pad, working from the faucet back toward the frozen area. Never use an open flame — every winter we see pipe repairs turn into fire restoration jobs. If you can't locate the frozen section, or if water starts appearing where it shouldn't, shut off the main and call us. A split section is usually a same-day pipe repair once the water is off; a line that has frozen more than once in the same wall is a candidate for rerouting in freeze-tolerant PEX. Our 24/7 line is answered around the clock from our Federal Way headquarters, with crews covering Vancouver and Spokane, and burst-pipe season is exactly what it's staffed for.
Related services
Serving Tacoma, Seattle, Federal Way, Vancouver & Clark County, Spokane
- Plumbers in Tacoma
- Plumbers in Seattle
- Plumbers in Federal Way
- Plumbers in Vancouver & Clark County
- Plumbers in Spokane
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