Home › Frozen Pipes
Serves: one pipe thawed without a flood. A defrost, not a fry — gentle heat, patience, and the stopcock off as insurance.
The short version: if a tap has slowed to a dribble or stopped in a cold snap, turn the stopcock off first as insurance, then warm the pipe gently — hairdryer on low, or towels soaked in warm water — working from the tap end back towards the blockage. Never a flame, never boiling water straight onto the pipe. If it's already split, stop thawing and ring 020 4577 2888.
Stopcock off first, then heat gently from the tap end inward. Working from the wrong end can trap pressure between the ice and a closed tap.
Never use a naked flame — not a blowtorch, not a lighter — and never pour boiling water directly onto a pipe. Both can turn trapped ice into a burst pipe in seconds, and a scorched pipe is a second job on top of the first.
Roofspaces, garages, outbuildings and any pipe on an external wall — inland North Antrim takes a harder frost than the coast. Rural properties feel it hardest.
The pattern is the same every winter: a mild spell lulls people into forgetting the cold, then a hard frost settles over the Route countryside and any pipe that never got lagged is suddenly a solid stick of ice. Roofspaces are the classic culprit, since loft insulation keeps heat in the rooms below but does nothing for a pipe running through the cold roofspace above it — if anything, thick loft insulation under a cold pipe can make things worse by cutting off the small amount of heat rising from the house.
Farm outbuildings and long private supply runs from the road are the other repeat offenders, common across the townlands around Dervock, Stranocum and Finvoy, where a pipe can run an exposed stretch with no insulation at all before it ever reaches the house. If that's your setup, those are exactly the runs worth lagging before the first real frost of the year, not after.
Foam lagging on every exposed run, taped at the joints, plus a little background heat on the coldest nights. An evening's work, done once a year.
A frozen pipe usually follows a hard frost and affects a tap that ran fine before — often one on an outside wall, in a loft or in an unheated outbuilding. An airlock tends to be more random, unrelated to the weather, and sometimes clears itself if you run another tap nearby. If in doubt, treat it as frozen and start with the stopcock off.
Anywhere from twenty minutes to a couple of hours, depending on how long the pipe run is and how solid the blockage is. Gentle and slow is the whole point — rushing it with strong heat is what risks splitting the pipe, so patience is genuinely the fastest safe method.
Yes, on pipes you know are exposed — a slow trickle keeps water moving, and moving water is far more resistant to freezing solid. It's a cheap, simple habit for the coldest nights, alongside proper lagging rather than instead of it.
Yes, with one extra step: disconnect any hose first, since a hose left attached can trap water in the tap and worsen a split. Thaw gently as with any other pipe, and fit an outside tap cover or insulating jacket before the next cold snap — a cheap fix that prevents a repeat.
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Go to home →Stopcock, taps, electrics — the first five minutes in order.
Open the card →Pressure drops, error codes, cold radiators — and gas safety.
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