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Plumbing · Colorado
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Burst Pipe

Close the main valve the moment a line lets go, because pressure keeps pushing water into framing and insulation until the supply is cut.

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When this becomes an emergency

What a pro does

Shutting the water down comes ahead of everything else, and on a lot of Colorado houses that valve sits in an unheated crawlspace or a mechanical room off the garage. The plumber then works out where the split is. Freezing damage rarely announces itself at the break; a pipe swells and cracks while it's frozen solid and only starts moving water once it thaws, which is why so many of these calls come in during the warm afternoon after a cold snap rather than during it. Crawlspaces are where it usually happens. A vented crawlspace under an older mountain or foothills home holds outside air, and a supply line stapled to a joist there has nothing but a few inches of insulation between it and a night at ten below. Garages and additions built over unheated space run a close second. Once the section is exposed, the plumber cuts out the damaged run and rejoins it with fittings matched to the existing pipe, then brings pressure back gradually and watches for the second failure, because a line that froze in one spot usually froze along its whole exposed length.

Frequently asked questions

Because ice was plugging the break. The pipe splits while frozen and holds itself closed, so nothing escapes until the plug melts. A house can come through a cold stretch looking fine and then flood on the first warm afternoon that follows.
Air temperature. A vented crawlspace sits close to outdoor conditions all winter while a heated basement stays well above freezing, so identical pipe in the same house survives in one place and fails in the other. Foundation vents left open through the winter make the gap wider.
Colder nights and longer sub-freezing stretches at higher elevation give a line more time to lose heat, and that's what actually matters. A pipe freezes on cumulative exposure rather than on a single overnight low, which is why mountain towns see failures on lines that would survive on the plains.
That depends on your policy and on the circumstances, including whether the property was being heated. Carriers differ on this quite a bit, so contact your insurance provider before the repairs begin and photograph the damage first.

Burst Pipe?

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