Frozen and Broken Pipes

Frozen or Broken Pipes?  Get a Licensed Montana Plumber to Work on Them Today

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There’s nothing more grueling than having to deal with frozen or broken pipes. However, the task at hand must be dealt with immediately instead of prolonging your distress. Plumbers 911 Montana offers the following tips which can dramatically reduce your stress load and minimize damage.

What Causes These Plumbing Problems

When extremely cold weather combines with chilly winds, there is a considerable chance that your pipes might burst. Pipe water in subzero temperatures is turned into ice, expanding and blocking the line. As a result, this obstruction drastically increases pressure all throughout the entire system, causing vulnerability and failure. Unfortunately, this phenomenon does not spare any pipe however apparently strong the material may be, whether it is steel, copper or plastic. In other words, pressure spares nothing. A singular and tiny crack unleashes over 250 gallons of water in twenty four hours. Burst pipes result in severe property damage, costly repairs and business interruption.

Helpful Tips from Your Local Montana Plumbing Tech

• First and foremost, immediately turn off your home’s water supply valve upon any suspicion pointing to a broken pipe. This significantly reduces the pressure, minimizes water wastage and flooding, and limits the damage to your home. • Shutting down your home’s main power must be done immediately, especially if the problematic lines are in dangerously close proximity to electrical switches. • After having switched off the water and power supply, appliances and furniture should be moved to a safe area away from the damaging water. After all, there’s no assurance that insurance can replace or cover everything. • If you’ve located the frozen pipe and it is accessible, try thawing it using a hairdryer. Never ever resort to using open flame for thawing as this can be very dangerous. Make sure that the faucet connected to the problematic pipe is open. This allows the safe diffusion of steam and water that will come out due to the thawing process. • Also make sure to thaw a pipe starting from the faucet and working backward to the other end of the frozen line. As the ice melts, steam and water is safely diffused out through the open faucet. Starting anywhere in the middle of the frozen line will turn ice into steam, trapping it and building considerable pressure to rupture the pipe. • Drain your water system as speedily as you can. You can do this by turning on every single faucet in your home, as well as flushing the toilets. By doing so, you are helping disperse or distribute water and pressure away from the burst pipes, effectively draining the remaining water in the pipes. To speed up the draining process, it would be helpful to safely turn off your home’s heaters, which includes the boiler and the central heating, before turning on all hot water faucets in your home. • While in the process of draining, it only makes sense to, somehow or other, gather the water gushing from the broken pipes to minimize the damage to the walls, the ceiling, the floor, as well as appliances and furniture. Use any possible vessel within reach, such as pots and pans, buckets, vases or basins. • After having contained and controlled the situation to a certain degree, call Plumbers 911 Montana ASAP. Our professional technicians will be there in no time to assess and fix the situation. • Contact and notify your insurance provider regarding the damages and losses in your home. Your chances of claiming insurance would be considerably better if you take pictures and write down the details of the incident.