Frozen Pipes, Costly Lessons

A vacant home. No furnace. Water service left on during a deep freeze. That combination set the stage for a preventable disaster—and a master class in how frozen pipes actually happen. We unpack the physics in plain language, explain where pipes freeze first, and share practical steps to thaw safely without turning your crawl space into a bonfire hazard.

We start with the scenario: a two-story house sitting at near-freezing indoor temperatures, ice visible at a bathroom faucet, and a listing team that didn’t winterize. From there, we dive into why insulation alone won’t save stagnant water when single-digit temperatures linger, how cold creeps through gaps around hose bibs and gas lines, and why closed vanity doors can create mini freezers on exterior walls. You’ll learn a careful thaw routine—crack a nearby faucet, inspect for bulges or splits, apply gentle, directed heat, and let the trickle do the work—plus the common mistakes that cause fires, flooding, or carbon monoxide risks.

We also look at the real estate implications. Turning on water in an unheated, vacant property can mean damaged plumbing, hidden leaks behind drywall, and costly concessions at closing. As licensed home inspectors, we outline when to pause an inspection, what it takes to come back after repairs, and how buyers and sellers can protect themselves. Finally, we share simple prevention habits: keep the thermostat at 55–56°F when away, open cabinets on exterior walls, seal penetrations, insulate vulnerable runs, and properly winterize hose bibs.

Subscribe for more straight talk on home systems, share this episode with someone who needs a winter wake-up call, and leave a review with your best prevention tip—what temp do you set when you travel?

Chapters

• 0:00 A House With No Furnace
• 1:28 Why Pipes Freeze And Where
• 3:35 Safe Steps To Thaw Pipes
• 6:13 Heaters, Hazards, And What Not To Do
• 8:24 Costs, Damage, And Buyer Impact
• 10:22 Winter Settings And Hose Bib Prep
• 11:28 Final Reminders From The Inspectors

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

All right, Laura. We were at a house the other day. One of our specialists was at a house the other day, and interesting scenario. Yeah. Well, this is a total failure. By I I would say the listening agent should know better. The cellar failed taking of taking care of their problem, but we get there and it's been cold, but the pipes are all frozen.

SPEAKER_02: 0:25

So the water was left on.

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

Well, yeah, the water's left on, and even further all right. I understand you didn't realize it was going to get so cold. Snuck up on you, maybe.

SPEAKER_02: 0:35

But no, they've been talking about it.

SPEAKER_01: 0:37

Yes, but if it you know, weather man's always allowed to be off quite a bit. But it's I still miss my calling. If the weather sneaks up when it gets cold and your pipe froze, yeah, that's that sucks. That can happen to anybody, really. But when you don't have a furnace in your house, you never had one installed, why in the world would you ever have your water service turned on, your pipes filled with water, knowing that it's winter time? And then you're supposed to have a because there's no way you're gonna heat the house because you have not installed your furnace. What kind of stupidity is this?

SPEAKER_02: 1:18

Well, and and that you're having somebody come and look at it because you're selling the house and they want to make sure stuff was done right. So you're gonna let all of that go and just turn on the water.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30

Yeah. So well, who turned on the water? I imagine the house was vacant for a while.

SPEAKER_02: 1:35

I think the seller or the listing agent did. I either one or a conjunction. I I have no clue. I I don't know how that played out.

SPEAKER_01: 1:43

So listen, if it's all right, just in case you don't know, water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit and at zero degrees Celsius. Just because it's 32 degrees outside, usually that means your your pipes inside house are not going to freeze because you have insulation and you have a furnace that works that well you've a furnace in the first place and it's and it's functioning, so your stuff's not gonna freeze. But when it gets near single digits, that the colder it gets, the more likely your pipes are gonna freeze because if the water just sits there long enough and water and the cold migrates, I'll say migrates in, but we know based upon law of thermodynamics, heat tra heat travels from greater to lesser. Laura's rolling her eyes because I know you can't see this, but anyway, as it gets cold out, or there's gaps around your uh your siding where you have pipes come through the walls, your gas pipes, whatever. You have little gaps around there, or where your ho your hose bib goes out, gaps from there, cold air's gonna go in, and if it's you know single digits, yeah, you're probably gonna freeze your pipes because that heat will I'll say cold will transfer to the rest of the pipes and freeze them.

SPEAKER_02: 3:01

Well, that's why we left our doors open to the bathroom and the cabinet in the old house, because those old that that area tended to get colder. It was under a crawl space, the siding wasn't that perfect on it, wind would come in. So we kept stuff open.

SPEAKER_01: 3:20

Well, and I did this house also, and we did our battery. I left the cabinet open because you know, better safe to me than to be sorry. But if you if you find that your water's not flowing where it flowed was flowing before, you might have frozen pipes. So I'm gonna go over this. Here's our first all right. If you have this, all right, something bad happened, but you need to fall those things out safely. So the steps to thaw out.

SPEAKER_00: 3:51

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SPEAKER_01: 4:16

Frozen pies are first, whatever faucet is closest to that. Like let's say bathroom, you open that faucet to help relieve some pressure. And you don't have it wide open, just a little bit. Take pressure off, okay? And then you're gonna have to figure out where does this freeze at? And most likely it's gonna be uh down in the crawl space, maybe, or base marriage, which doesn't keep us warm.

SPEAKER_02: 4:43

Over near the foundation walls.

SPEAKER_01: 4:45

Yes. So what you then you need to warm that pipe up. You're well, you're gonna examine it first. If you look at that pipe and you see some splits in it, you need to make sure the water is shut off to that because it's if that's gonna thaws, it's gonna spray water.

SPEAKER_02: 5:02

So you don't need to put something underneath it.

SPEAKER_01: 5:04

Yes. But if it's not bulging cracked, get it warm. Some of the suggestions are hairdryer, heat gun. If you have one of those, you can take like uh hot, you know, towels, fill you know, come with hot water and wrap them around. You don't have to repeat that repeatedly. There's that will that will lose heat pretty quick. Heat tape. You can do heat if you have heat tape already, you can put that around there, but you need to warm those up and then keep an eye on it. And then hopefully what's gonna happen is that faucet that you had on will slowly start dripping water. And when it does that, don't have the faucet wide open, keep it slightly open, because if if it's all the way, all that ice may loosen up, flow towards your faucet, and then make like an ice dam itself and block the flow. So let's do that. Let it just trickle slowly. So it's like you should have to prevent the freezing in the first place, but just let it trickle slowly, and then that heated water, well, I should say non-frozen water, will thaw that ice inside that pipe, and eventually you'll have full flow. But one of the things you do not want to do, and I have seen this, Laura, in a crawl space.

SPEAKER_02: 6:20

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01: 6:21

Up at Indian Lake, of course.

SPEAKER_02: 6:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 6:24

They you're uh go to a gr uh car garage and they have those gasoline, it looks like a jet engine, it's shooting flames out here.

SPEAKER_02: 6:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:34

I've seen one of those in a crawl space.

SPEAKER_02: 6:36

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01: 6:37

Yeah, no. Do not use open flames to that would be bad. That's how you start fires to your house. And if you use like an electric uh portable heater, make sure it has clearance around it and keep an eye on that.

SPEAKER_02: 6:51

And don't use a propane one because the byproducts of that will cause high humidity and can also make you sick.

SPEAKER_01: 7:00

It can from carbon monoxide. It can, but you gotta. Alright, if my pipe frozen, I'm not worried about the humidity of my crawl space. I'm worried about getting my pipes falls. They don't burst.

SPEAKER_02: 7:12

Well, let me rephrase that. Don't leave well, I don't know. Would it be better to leave it on then and keep your bite pipes from bursting and use that to keep the the pipes from bursting in that room?

SPEAKER_01: 7:23

A propane heater? Yeah. They make those kerosene heaters. If you need to and you need to keep that room warmer warm, you know, help prevent freezing. Yes. Prevention is always better than uh the cures, really.

SPEAKER_02: 7:41

Was the old saying.

SPEAKER_01: 7:42

That's what Ben Franklin would say, yes. So I think that's really it, but it's just really weird that it's not weird that it froze.

SPEAKER_02: 7:50

It's weird you might have an HVAC system in it.

SPEAKER_01: 7:53

But you don't even have a heater, and you for some reason thought that was okay to leave the pipes filled with water and keep the water service on it. It makes no sense. The only way I can think that maybe that's okay. You're a seller, you moved out of state, you live in Arizona, you don't notice the cold down there, you didn't get the news it's gonna be cold up here, and totally slipped your mind.

SPEAKER_02: 8:18

But even then, the agent, that agent should have known.

SPEAKER_01: 8:21

The agent is a real estate professional who surely got the house ready for the inspection and just help. I mean, they're not maintenance, but they should they should know better to not let the house get junk. Because now the agent who wants a commission, which I makes sense. I understand that. Well, your commission is gonna go down a couple thousand dollars if those pipes are damaged. I mean, it's not I imagine that would be part of the negotiations, or or the seller has to cough up the money to get those pipes fixed, assuming they're damaged.

SPEAKER_02: 8:56

I and it got based on what you saw, they probably are.

SPEAKER_01: 9:00

Well, yeah, there's an ice cycle for forcing its way down the uh faucet in the bathroom, which tells me that whole pipe is froze, not just one little spot down in the basement or a crawl space.

SPEAKER_02: 9:12

Well, the house the house itself was 30.

SPEAKER_01: 9:16

Like what three degrees inside the house?

SPEAKER_02: 9:18

Yeah, like surface temperature of stuff in the house was 30. So the house was cold.

SPEAKER_01: 9:26

So who it's hard to tell. Well, it doesn't have a furnace, so it's not like it got cold one night in maybe one area. It's been extremely cold for a couple days in a row.

SPEAKER_02: 9:36

It's stayed cold.

SPEAKER_01: 9:38

So it's there's there's good potential for lots of damage in the house, unfortunately. But our inspector said he would once they get it fixed, he'll go back out and finish up the inspection for them because he doesn't want the person getting screwed over. Right. The buyer. Maybe the buyer knows furnaces totally fine with that, but I don't think they'd be fine on frozen damaged pipes.

SPEAKER_02: 10:03

I would not, unless I was a plumber, and even then I'd be asking for money off for the uh price of the materials.

SPEAKER_01: 10:10

Yeah, and I don't know the house, but the house was two stories. You have to I mean, do they get damaged up inside the ceiling behind the wall? You have a lot of drywall damage potential or work that has to be done, or get I mean, maybe you cut the drywall out neatly so you can fix the pipe and put it back up.

SPEAKER_02: 10:28

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 10:29

Potentially, but you need to find it first. Yes. So that was a story we had the other day. So yeah, take care of your house during the winter, bacon or not. Still an investment. Yeah, well, you shouldn't. Here's why whenever we left the house or vacation or like that, which is not very often, but we I don't want the house below 56 degrees. Just give a little cushion for heat. I don't ever want to have it completely shut off. No, even during the summer, no, I don't want it getting so hot and humid that we get mold growing or anything like that. Like, nope, keep the keep the AC on so the humidity stays lower, and during the winter, keep the heat on at least 55, 56 degrees, so at least you're you're gonna help prevent pipes bursting. And hose bibs, you should winterize those already by now. Which means you shut you shut the water off, hose disconnected, and then you got some uh insulation cover insulated cover on the outside of the hose bib so it's not directly exposed to the outside. So that's it. All right, everybody. Bye bye. Always get it inspected.