
The pipe froze at six. What to do before you call us.
Shut the main stopcock first — the tap you have never touched, usually by the meter or under the kitchen sink.1 Everything else on this page can wait ninety seconds.
Then open the tap that the frozen pipe feeds. When the ice lets go the water has somewhere to go, and the pressure that splits a pipe never builds.1
Warm it from the tap end backwards: a hairdryer, a warm towel, patience. Never a flame — that is how a cold morning becomes an insurance claim.2
We have published nothing about pipes that freeze inside a wall. Flagged for you — a question, not a guess.
- [1] Where the stopcock is, room by room · knowledge base
- [2] Frost damage: what the insurer asks for · knowledge base