Steam Cleaning Frozen Pipes and Frozen Pipe Dos and Don’ts

Winter and ice is not always nice to our plumbing! You’ve already followed the 4 Steps to Winterizing Your Home and Preventing Frozen Pipes, so you’ve done what you can to prevent frozen pipes. Unfortunately, with our winter temperatures known to plummet well below zero sometimes frozen pipes do happen.

If your pipes become frozen, don’t panic. There are multiple options to unfreezing pipes. One of which we’ll share more detail. Below we share DIY pipe unfreezing dos and don’t and more about the steam cleaning method to unfreeze pipes.

Steam Cleaning Pipes

Steam cleaning is one of the most effective and safe ways to unfreeze a pipe. Steaming will gently heat up the pipes and help water flow quickly. Unlike other pipe unfreezing methods, steaming is relatively safe to use on any line.

Think of sitting in a hot steam room at a health club. For your body, the steam will help with circulation and open pores among other health benefits. The same process will help safely melt the frozen pipe and improve the circulation of your home’s frozen pipes.

DIY Pipe Unfreezing Dos and Don’ts

If you Google “diy pipe unfreezing” many articles and blogs pop up with ideas on how to unfreeze your pipes yourself. We love to DIY when it’s appropriate, but do caution DIY with certain plumbing projects such as unfreezing pipes.  We highly recommend you call an expert if you do experience a frozen pipe to safely and quickly resolve the issue, however, if you try DIY please follow our dos and dont’s below.

Do:

• Understand the risk of DIY pipe unfreezing. If you don’t correctly unfreeze, you might accidentally burst the pipe or worse.
• Research several methods and read all blog or article comments. There you’ll find stories of people actually trying the method and their results (good and bad).
• Be very cautious about which heat source to use on the frozen pipe. Some DIY articles encourage the use of space heater, hair dryer, or torch. Any of these misused can result in more damage to your home.

Don’t:

• Try to unfreeze the wrong pipe or start heating all your pipes. This action can result in a burst pipe if you’re heating up the incorrect one or worse damage to your home.
• Forget to shut off the main water if a pipe does burst as this will reduce damage while you wait for a professional to help.

Trust Your Local Professionals to Safely Unfreeze Pipes

The method of unfreezing does depend on the severity of the frozen pipes. Please contact a professional for help safely unfreeze your pipes.

One Hour Rooter is your trusted plumber in the metro Minneapolis area. Call us at 612-354-8984 if you need help with frozen pipes or for any plumbing needs.