Gary Sullivan talks on frozen pipes 12/4/2025

Boy, you better lean on this guy if you want to know what's going on. It's our buddy Gary Sullivan. You can listen to him in nearly three hundred stations across America, and of course we're lucky to have him our sister station wuk RC starting at nine o'clock Saturdays and Sundays. Gary, I really enjoyed catching up with you last night. How was the grandchildren's holiday concert last night?

Exhilarating? Exhilarating, exhilarating. It was fun.

It's nothing like watching a bunch of fourth graders sing to you Christmas.

No doubt about it.

Now, I tell you what's not exhilarating if you get a frozen water pipe. Oh all right, So let's start with the very basic kind of thing, okay, and that is where do most people find or know if they have a frozen water pipe?

Well, usually you find out one of the faucets that you use. I know when I had one one time. My daughter was probably in the eighth grade.

Dad, there's no water in my pathtop?

Uh, well, right behind that walls the attic, so the frozen pipe must be there.

So a lot of times people find out, really because the water's just not working.

But those water pipes are usually located along an outside wall, especially in older homes where there's no insulation in the walls, basement crawl spaces, those aren't heated. And up near the silt plates and the joist pockets where you get outside air. That's a place unheated. Garages, you know, the old garages, yeah, yep, and some of our older subdivisions where you pull down underneath the house and there's you know, the heat rises and got an old rackety garage door. That's a that's

So right now, even though you were telling me last night that it's probably not cold enough yet, but we know that that is on the way. In fact, we're going to be the coldest we've been in as far as a high today is concerned, as far as a low tonight is concerned.

Right.

So what I mean, is this the kind of thing that you can begin to address now?

Oh?

Absolutely, Okay, I've been appreciating it on my show for a while. You know, where people get in trouble, it's not the people that have lived in the house for twenty five years. They've probably experienced it. They've probably rectified it over the years. But you know, somebody it's moving into a new home, but it's an older home, you know, and they've not been through a really cold winter's It's not really.

Cold enough now unless the pipe is outside.

You know, it's twenty nine degrees, but it gets down to five degrees or zero degrees, those addicts get really cold. The cross spaces get really cold, those outside walls get really cold, and then.

You're going to have problems.

So really trying to understand your house and where the pipes are and where they're vulnerable. There's easy ways to keep them from freezings. Some just opening up a cabinet and.

Letting the heat of the room in there.

Put foam wraps around the pipes that are against outside walls, if you know you don't have any insulation, those are great ways to prevent the problem.

Okay, now there is a difference some of the material makeup of some of these pipes. Let's start with, do you thaw copper pipes pecs plumbing the same way.

Yeah, so pes is.

Kind of you know in newer homes, but you know they can be vulnerable too, so they can freeze.

Pecks. Pipes can freeze. If you're not familiar with what pecks is.

It's kind of like a kind of a rubber hose instead of a copper pipe.

So they both freeze. And when water inside of pipe freeze.

You know, they when it turns ice, it kind of expands, it's it breaks the pipe.

It can stretch the pipe.

Copper can get a big bubble in it, and then a split pecs can just crack. But sometimes they're just frozen and there's no damage, and that's really when you want to catch it, and when you find where the frozen pipe is. So if you're not getting water out of the tap, you got to kind of figure out that.

Where that pipe goes, and you can usually quickly find where it's vulnerable.

May it's supposed to be in a walll cavity with insulation around it, and yet it you know, when they built the house, maybe the plumber missed the cavity.

And that happened to me, and you know, so you got to get up there.

But doing it before it gets really cold is a good time to do it. But once you're not getting water out, find a pipe, and that's when you start the process.

Of falling it.

The first thing you do is open up the faucet that wasn't delivering the water.

Keep it open, and.

Then pecks is going to be a little bit more sensitive.

Of how you thought it.

Never use an open flame, boy, I remember back in the winters when we had really harsh winters, people trying to fall pipes with torches propane torches.

Never do that.

It's such a huge dramatic change in temperatures. You can split, you can split the pipe, and you could melt the pecks.

So for a copper pipe, you can you know, you can use a heat gun just to put it on medium, just kind of warm it. You could use a hair dryer, That's what I was wondering about. A blow dryer. Yeah, sure, sure, I've thought many a pipe with a hair dryer. I mean, you gotta be patient.

You got to sit there for five or ten minutes, you know, when you're sitting in the attic on Christmas morning, which I was, and then when you hear the water run.

And say, yahoo, right right right right.

Warm towels can even thaw it. But you know, with pecks, you want to you know, again, no open flame. You want to be a little less aggressive. I don't know, a heat gun might be pushing a little bit. I prefer a hair dryer, but you could use a heat gun if you put it on low. But you know, just don't use an open flame.

I know there's still people that do that.

It falls it fast, but a lot of cases that pipe will burst, and it will burst maybe behind a wall, and then you got a real problem.

Ah, you talked about it.

Wrap styrofoam wrap, But is that the best thing to prevent, say, future freezing. You know, maybe they haven't frozen yet because, like you talked about, what, we're not there yet. But is that the best thing to do as far as preventing it happening anytime soon?

Yeah, unless you're in a really really like maybe a garage and you, I don't know, have virtually a really really old door where that garage can get down to zero degrees when it's below zero outside. You know, the foam wrap will help ninety percent of the time if it's a really exposed area. I don't know why you would have a copper pipe. Let's say there's one running underneath the deck or something, and you didn't shut off the water on the inside and drain it in the fall.

You don't over.

App a heat tape, but you wrap around the pipe with about a three in space between it.

It's got a thermostat in it.

You set it at thirty nine degrees and it keeps that pipe warm and water flowing.

Make sure its UL approve though.

Okay, and you would be able to tell that what what do you mean be able to No, I mean there's markings on it that it is approved.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah right, you don't have the UL tag on it for sure. Yeah, good question. Okay, all right, all.

Right now, And just for the record, if you don't address these things, and all of a sudden you have a water pipe burst, yeah, you are looking at some serious cash and maybe significant damage.

Well, absolutely, because unless you shut off the water, you'll still have water into pipes.

You'll still have a disaster.

But you know, if you have a pipe that's frozen, and let's say you discovered maybe a day later, like right now, we don't use the upstairs kids have own.

And when it.

Gets down, I would say when it's down in single digits, are below zero, that's when pipes inside the home become vulnerable, if they're exposed to areas that aren't heated, attics, cross spaces, garages, outside walls, just as we talked about. And you know, if you if you find a frozen pipe and you know you're on your way to work or something, I would certainly shut off the water, maybe drain the water out of the pipes with the other.

Faucets, because if you leave.

Water in those pipes under pressure and it's frozen and that copper line splits, you got the full force of that whole water system spewing water on the inside of the walls. That's a big, big problem. That a big that's a big problem. That's that's when it gets real expensive. And then you know, you know, you still got to pipe, prepare and everything else. But that's the least of your problems.

No doubt about it. Great catching up with you. My friend really enjoyed it last night.

It was fun. It was fun, all right, buddy.

You have a great rest of your weekend and we'll listen to you on fifty five KRC starting on Saturday. Very good, Thanks Tonning, Gary Sullivan kind enough to join us as he does every single Thursday. Hope that helped you. I mean believe you heard it from him. He's the expert. You have one of those bad boys freeze up and you don't have the water turned off, and that thing