Winter prep

How to Prevent Frozen Pipes in a Colorado Winter

Pipes freeze and burst when water in an unheated run, an exterior wall, a crawl space, an unheated garage, or an outdoor hose bibb, drops below freezing and the ice expands. The fixes are simple and cheap: disconnect hoses before the first freeze, insulate vulnerable pipe, keep the house warm enough even when you are away, and on the coldest nights let a trickle run and open cabinet doors on outside walls. Here is exactly which pipes are at risk in a Colorado home and how to protect them.

Why the Front Range is hard on pipes

Colorado's Front Range does not just get cold, it swings. A sunny afternoon can sit well above freezing and the same night drop into the teens, and that freeze-thaw cycle is what makes winter here tough on plumbing. Water expands about nine percent when it freezes, and in a closed pipe that expansion has nowhere to go, so it builds enormous pressure. Interestingly, the pipe often does not split at the ice itself but downstream of it, where the trapped water is squeezed against a closed faucet. The crack may not even show until the ice thaws and water pours out, which is why a frozen pipe discovered in time is a save and one discovered late is a flood.

Englewood's older housing adds risk, because pre-war and postwar homes often have uninsulated crawl spaces, pipe run through exterior walls, and additions or porches with plumbing that was never well protected from the cold.

Which pipes are most at risk

The common thread is any water-filled pipe that sits in a space the home's heat does not reach. Those are the runs to find before winter and protect, because they are where nearly every burst starts.

Prevention, from cheapest to most thorough

Before the first hard freeze

Disconnect and drain garden hoses. A connected hose traps water in the bibb, and that water freezes, expands, and can split the pipe back inside the wall where you will not see it until spring. If you have interior shutoffs for the outdoor bibbs, close them and drain the bibb; if you have frost-free hose bibbs, disconnecting the hose is the key step that lets them do their job. Blow out or shut down the irrigation system for the season.

Insulate the vulnerable runs

Foam pipe sleeves on the pipes in crawl spaces, garages, and against exterior walls are inexpensive and effective. For a run that has frozen before, heat cable (heat tape) rated for the job adds active protection. Seal drafts and gaps where cold air pours in near pipes, a surprising amount of freezing happens because outside air is blowing directly across a pipe through a gap in the rim joist or foundation.

On the coldest nights

Let a faucet fed by an at-risk pipe drip; moving water is much harder to freeze, and an open faucet relieves the pressure that actually bursts the pipe. Open the cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls so household heat reaches the pipes. Keep the thermostat at a steady temperature day and night rather than setting it back hard overnight during a deep freeze. If you leave town in winter, do not turn the heat off; keep it set no lower than the mid-fifties, and consider having someone check the house.

What to do if a pipe freezes but has not burst

If a faucet barely trickles on a cold morning and you suspect a freeze, act before it bursts. Open the faucet so that as the ice melts, water and pressure have an escape. Apply gentle heat to the frozen section, a hair dryer, a space heater kept safely clear of anything flammable, or warm towels, working from the faucet end back toward the ice. Never use an open flame. If you cannot reach the frozen spot, or the pipe has already split, shut off the water at the main and call. A frozen pipe that has cracked needs burst pipe repair, and if it has thawed and flooded, prompt water damage restoration is what keeps it from becoming a mold problem.

The runs worth a professional look

If the same pipe freezes every winter, that is a design problem worth solving permanently rather than nursing through each cold snap, whether by rerouting, insulating properly, or adding heat cable. And if you are not sure which of your pipes are exposed, a plumber can walk the crawl space, garage and exterior walls with you before winter and point out the runs at risk. An hour of prevention in the fall is far cheaper than a flooded basement in January. The same freeze-thaw risk runs across the older housing throughout the south metro, so whether your home is in Englewood or nearby Littleton, the fall checklist is the same: find the exposed runs, protect them, and keep the heat on. If a hidden pinhole from a past freeze has been weeping unseen behind a wall, that is worth catching with leak detection before it quietly swells the framing around it.

Common questions