Pipes Frozen? What to Do Right Now

You opened a faucet during a hard freeze and got a trickle, or nothing. The American Red Cross puts it plainly: if you turn on a faucet and only a trickle comes out, suspect a frozen pipe. If it has not burst yet, this is recoverable. The job is to thaw it without starting a fire, and without being caught out if the ice is holding a crack shut.

Step 1: Work out which lines are frozen

Check every faucet in the house, hot and cold sides separately. The Red Cross says to check all other faucets to find out whether you have additional frozen pipes, because if one pipe freezes, others may freeze too. The pattern tells you where to look.

One faucet dead, the rest fine. The freeze is in the branch line feeding that fixture. Start with the run closest to it, and open the cabinet underneath if the fixture sits on an exterior wall.
One side or one floor of the house dead. Suspect a run through the attic or an exterior wall. The Red Cross lists attics, garages, and crawl spaces among the unheated areas where supply pipes freeze, along with pipes running against exterior walls that have little or no insulation. The Texas Department of Insurance tells Texans to start pipe wraps in the attic, where many Texas homeowners saw pipes freeze.
Nothing anywhere in the house. The freeze is close to where water comes in. The Red Cross names the point where your water service enters the home through the foundation as a likely spot; in a Texas house that usually means a garage wall, a crawl space, or the run out to the meter.

Follow the suspect pipe as far as you can see it. Frost or beaded condensation on the outside narrows down the frozen length. A section that looks swollen or split is past thawing: it is already damaged, so leave the heat off, shut the water down, and call a plumber.

Step 2: Find the shutoff before you apply any heat

Ice can plug its own crack. A pipe that split while freezing often will not leak until the ice melts, which is why TDI says that if your pipes freeze you should turn off the water at the shutoff valve, because that prevents broken pipes from leaking into your house after they thaw. TDI also describes where to find it in a Texas home: usually under a metal lid near the street, between your house and the larger cover over the city's valve. Our guide to finding your shutoff valve in a Texas home covers the rest of the likely spots.

You do not have to shut the water off to thaw one accessible pipe, but you do need to be able to shut it off in seconds. Close the valve first if you are leaving the house, if you cannot stay with the pipe while it thaws, or if you can already see a bulge or a split.

Step 3: Open the faucet, then warm the pipe

Open the faucet the frozen line serves and leave it open. The Red Cross gives the reason: as the frozen area melts, water begins to flow again, and running cold water through the pipe helps melt the ice in it.
Apply heat to the frozen section. The Red Cross lists four options: an electric heating pad wrapped around the pipe, an electric hair dryer, a portable space heater kept away from flammable materials, or towels soaked in hot water and wrapped around the pipe.
Work from the faucet end back toward the ice. Heating the middle of a plug first can leave meltwater and steam trapped between two blockages with nowhere to expand. Opening a path to the faucet first avoids that.
Keep the heat on until full water pressure is restored. That is the Red Cross stopping point, and it is not the same as the first trickle.
Recheck every other faucet once the first line is flowing.

Safety rules that are not optional.

No open flame. The Red Cross rules out a blowtorch, kerosene or propane heater, charcoal stove, or other open flame device. A pipe usually runs against framing, insulation, or subfloor you cannot see behind it, and NFPA's heating guidance is that fuel-burning equipment has to be vented outside to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning, which a heater burning in a crawl space or a sealed-up house is not.
Space heater rules. NFPA says to keep anything that can burn at least three feet away from a portable space heater, to plug the heater directly into a wall outlet and never use an extension cord, and to turn it off when you leave the room. An attic is the hardest place to satisfy the first rule, since loose insulation, stored boxes, and roof decking sit within three feet of most attic pipe runs. If you cannot clear that space, use the hair dryer or hot towels instead.
Electricity and water. Do not stand in water holding anything plugged in. ESFI's flood guidance says not to touch a circuit breaker or replace a fuse with wet hands or while standing on a wet surface, and if your heating pad, hair dryer, or space heater gets wet, ESFI says to have an electrician inspect appliances that have been wet and not to plug them back in until an electrician says it is safe.
Do not heat the house with the kitchen. A cold house during a freeze tempts people into leaving the oven open. NFPA's rule is never use your oven to heat your home.

Step 4: Watch for the burst as the ice melts

The moment water starts moving again is the moment a hidden split starts leaking. Stay with the pipe through the thaw and for a few minutes after pressure returns. Watch the joints and the length you warmed, and listen for hissing or dripping inside walls. If water starts spraying or running, close the shutoff, then follow our guide to the first 30 minutes after a pipe bursts. If water has already reached drywall, insulation, or flooring, see handling water damage after a freeze.

When this is beyond DIY

The Red Cross sets the threshold: call a licensed plumber if you are unable to locate the frozen area, if the frozen area is not accessible, or if you cannot thaw the pipe. That covers most freezes inside walls, ceilings, and slabs, where opening the structure or heating blind can cost more than it saves. A whole-house freeze, several frozen branches at once, or any pipe that is visibly bulged or split belongs with a professional too. If you are searching mid-storm, start with license-verified listings in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, or Fort Worth, or browse all Texas cities.

Once the water is flowing and the storm has passed, spend an afternoon on preventing frozen pipes before the next Texas front. The pipe that froze this time is the one most likely to freeze again.