Safe & Realistic Ways To Unfreeze Your Pipes

If you're reading this article because your pipes have just become frozen and you need to thaw them quickly, then read this article to help you determine if your need to calla licensed plumber, or if you can unfreeze the pipes yourslf.

Licensed Plumber Or Do-It-Yourself?

The first question you have to ask yourself, before you even start thinking about thawing your frozen pipes is, are you able to perform the physical activity that this involves also do you have the proper equipment and the tools.

This is the first thing that should help you determine if you need to call a licensed plumber to help you accomplish unfreezing your pipes and getting the water flowing again or if you can do this yourself.

Space Heaters Can Help thaw Frozen Pipes

If your bathroom or kitchen sink is frozen because it's been really cold outside and there's lack of insulation inside of the wall, before calling a plumber, you can try using a space heater to heat the cabinet below the sink.

You will always want to monitor the situation when using a space heater, which basically means you want to keep your eye on the space heater because if you get the cabinet too hot underneath, there could be risk of fire and you don't want your cabinets to go on fire or to light your bathroom on fire just because you're trying to unfreeze or thaw your frozen pipe/s.

So with that said, open up the faucet, place, your space heater underneath the sink, whether it's the kitchen sink or the bathroom sink, make sure to remove all cleaning products, anything, flammable, or anything that could catch on fire before you turn on the space heater

Keep the space heater on the lowest setting, make sure you keep an eye on the space heater, and your faucet open, usually within15 minutes to two hours, your faucet will start dripping water or flowing water again. It depends how cold it is outside and how strong the space heater is, that will detremine how long it takes for your frozen pipes to thaw.

Frozen Pipes Inside Walls Or The Basement

If you have frozen pipes inside of your walls, or in your basement and you're not a licensed plumber, it's probably a good idea to call a licensed plumber.

The reason being, sometimes, when you thaw or unfreeze your pipes, there is a hole or split inside of the pipe, and if that's the case, with a domestic waterline, or a waterline inside of your house, and you defrost the pipe, what will happen is water will go all over the place and that could put you in danger especially if there's a lot of electrical or anything else that can cause hazards in the area.

Licensed plumbers will be able to determine the situation/frozen pipes before they even take out their tools to make sure they're going to be completely safe when they thought your pipes that's why it's always a good idea to hire a licensed plumber if you have no idea what you're doing. Otherwise you can get hurt and it's just not gonna be worth it.

How Do Professional Plumbers Thaw Frozen Pipes?

There are many ways that professional plumbers thaw frozen pipes inside of walls, in the attic, under the sink, and sometimes even on the roof storm drain pipes leading down to the catch basin.

One of the ways they can do this is to use a special piece of equipment called a "piping hot machine". The piping hot machine heats the pipes using a transformer and electricity to quickly thaw the pipes using a no-flame method.

However, you need to be properly trained to use the piping hot machine because you can cause a fire if you don't use the machine properly. So always let the licensed professional plumber use the pipe hawing machine and don't try to do it yourself.

So just remember safety first when it comes to repairing any kind of plumbing repair if it's something you're not capable of, you don't have the correct tools to do the job, just let a professional licensed plumber do the job for you.

Before You Hire The Plumber

It's also very important to get a few estimates/quotes from different plumbing companies, just to make sure you're getting a fair price.

Tried to choose a plumbing company that's within a local area of where you live. That way if you do have problems, need repair work in the future, or you won't have to worry about them being available because they're right in your local town.

Also, always make sure to hire a licensed plumber just because somebody says they can do plumbing does not mean they are license to do so. There are important codes and strict guidelines, that only a licensed plumber will know about it and be responsible for so it's really important to choose a licensed plumber versus hiring somebody. That's just a handyman or somebody off a local website.