{
  "title": "Pipes Are Frozen — Who Do I Call?",
  "description": "Frozen pipes, nothing burst yet? The three moves that matter now, how to find and thaw the frozen section safely, when to call a plumber, and verified costs.",
  "category": "water",
  "vertical": "plumbing",
  "tldr": "Shut off the main water valve, then open the faucet that frozen line feeds — melting ice needs somewhere to go, and trapped pressure is what splits pipes. Thaw with a hair dryer or heat lamp, working from the faucet back toward the blockage. Never use a torch. Call a plumber if you can't find or reach the pipe, or if no flow returns. If the heat died, that's an HVAC emergency first.",
  "who_to_call": [
    {
      "who": "Emergency plumber",
      "when": "You can't find the frozen section, can't reach it, no flow returns after thawing, or you can see a bulge or split",
      "not_for": "An accessible line you can put a hair dryer on, with heat running and flow already improving"
    },
    {
      "who": "HVAC technician",
      "when": "The pipes froze because the furnace or boiler quit — the heat is the cause, and every other run in the house is on the same clock",
      "not_for": "Heat is running normally and one exposed line froze"
    },
    {
      "who": "Your water utility's emergency line",
      "when": "No water at any fixture and the freeze is at or before the meter, or your main valve won't close",
      "not_for": "Some fixtures still run — the blockage is inside your own plumbing"
    },
    {
      "who": "Your landlord, in writing, with a timestamp",
      "when": "You rent — loss of heat and loss of water are both habitability emergencies with legal response windows",
      "not_for": null
    },
    {
      "who": "Restoration company and your insurer",
      "when": "The pipe has already split — at that point this is a burst pipe, and the order of calls changes",
      "not_for": null
    }
  ],
  "costs": [
    {
      "item": "Plumber thawing a frozen pipe (flat rate some companies charge)",
      "range": "$100",
      "source": "Fixr",
      "source_url": "https://www.fixr.com/costs/burst-pipe-repair"
    },
    {
      "item": "Burst pipe repair, if it splits",
      "range": "$200–$1,000 (national average $500)",
      "source": "Fixr",
      "source_url": "https://www.fixr.com/costs/burst-pipe-repair"
    },
    {
      "item": "Frozen pipe burst repair, full spread across locations",
      "range": "$150–$5,000",
      "source": "Fixr",
      "source_url": "https://www.fixr.com/costs/burst-pipe-repair"
    },
    {
      "item": "Burst pipe in a wall or kitchen",
      "range": "$150–$500",
      "source": "Fixr",
      "source_url": "https://www.fixr.com/costs/burst-pipe-repair"
    },
    {
      "item": "Burst pipe under a slab",
      "range": "$500–$4,500",
      "source": "Fixr",
      "source_url": "https://www.fixr.com/costs/burst-pipe-repair"
    },
    {
      "item": "Plumber hourly rate",
      "range": "$75–$150, national average $90",
      "source": "Fixr",
      "source_url": "https://www.fixr.com/costs/plumbing"
    },
    {
      "item": "Initial service call fee",
      "range": "$50–$150 journeyman, $150–$300 master plumber",
      "source": "Fixr",
      "source_url": "https://www.fixr.com/costs/plumbing"
    },
    {
      "item": "Emergency call-out flat fee (on top of $150/hour standard emergency rate and a $50–$200 transportation fee)",
      "range": "$200–$300",
      "source": "Fixr",
      "source_url": "https://www.fixr.com/costs/plumbing"
    }
  ],
  "faq": [
    {
      "q": "How do I know when it's safe to turn the main water back on?",
      "a": "When steady flow returns at the faucet you opened. Then turn the main on slowly — a quarter turn, wait, listen — and stand at the section you thawed for a few minutes watching for drips. Walk the whole run, check the ceiling and floor below it, and look at the meter with every fixture closed: a dial that keeps creeping means water is going somewhere. Leave that faucet dribbling until the cold snap ends."
    },
    {
      "q": "How long should thawing take?",
      "a": "An accessible pipe with steady heat on it usually runs 20 to 45 minutes. Enclosed runs take hours because you are heating the wall, not the pipe. If 45 minutes of direct heat on a spot you are confident about produces nothing, you are almost certainly heating the wrong section — or the pipe is already split and being held shut by ice."
    },
    {
      "q": "Can I pour boiling water on it?",
      "a": "Hot water in soaked towels wrapped around the pipe is fine and works well. Boiling water poured over a very cold pipe is a worse version of the same idea — it scalds you on the rebound, it does nothing for anything inside a wall, and if the pipe is already cracked you have just added water to a floor you were trying to keep dry."
    },
    {
      "q": "Nothing has burst. Is this actually an emergency?",
      "a": "It is a window, not a disaster. The pipe is intact right now and you have a cheap outcome available — Fixr puts a flat-rate thaw at $100 against $200 to $1,000 for repairing a burst. What closes the window is leaving it frozen while the temperature keeps dropping, or thawing it badly."
    },
    {
      "q": "Why does an open faucet help?",
      "a": "Ice expanding at the blockage is not usually what splits the pipe. The ice plug acts as a stopper, and continued freezing drives pressure into the water trapped between the plug and the closed faucet — the pipe fails on that downstream side, sometimes nowhere near the ice. An open faucet removes that pressure and gives meltwater an exit."
    },
    {
      "q": "Only the hot water is dead. Does that narrow it down?",
      "a": "Yes. It puts the freeze on a hot run — commonly the stretch leaving the water heater through an unheated basement, crawl space, or garage ceiling, rather than in the room where the faucet is. Same logic in reverse if one bathroom is out and the rest of the house is fine: you are looking at that branch, in the coldest space it passes through."
    },
    {
      "q": "Will insurance cover it if it bursts?",
      "a": "Usually, provided the home was heated. Insurers do deny freeze claims on properties left unheated or vacant without precautions, so photograph the thermostat now while it costs you nothing. Whether filing is the right move at all is a separate question from whether it is covered."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "label": "Fixr: Burst pipe repair cost",
      "url": "https://www.fixr.com/costs/burst-pipe-repair",
      "accessed": "2026-08-16"
    },
    {
      "label": "Fixr: Cost to hire a plumber",
      "url": "https://www.fixr.com/costs/plumbing",
      "accessed": "2026-08-16"
    },
    {
      "label": "Insurance Information Institute: The homeowner's severe cold weather survival guide",
      "url": "https://www.iii.org/article/the-homeowners-severe-cold-weather-survival-guide",
      "accessed": "2026-08-16"
    }
  ],
  "updated": "2026-08-16",
  "url": "https://whodoicallfor.com/water/frozen-pipes/",
  "json_url": "https://whodoicallfor.com/water/frozen-pipes.json",
  "recommended_call": null
}