Frozen pipe at the cottage: what to do in the first hour

It’s a Saturday in January. You turn on the kitchen tap at the cottage and nothing comes out. Or a neighbour calls: there’s ice under the basement door. A frozen pipe isn’t water damage yet — but it can become water damage the moment it thaws. What you do in the first hour decides what happens next.

What to do right now

1. Look for a leak before you touch anything

Check under the sinks, around the water heater, on the ceiling below the bathroom and on the basement floor. Listen: hissing or dripping inside a wall is a bad sign. If you see water, a fresh stain, bulging drywall or a pipe that’s clearly split, go straight to step 2 and shut the water off.

2. Know where the main shut-off is — and close it at the first doubt

The main water valve is usually where the line comes through the foundation: in the basement, the crawl space or a utility closet. While the pipe is frozen, the ice sometimes plugs the crack; it’s when it thaws that water comes out at full pressure. Closing the valve limits how much can run.

If the cottage is on a well, the pump will keep pushing water as long as it has power. If its breaker is clearly labelled in the panel, switch that off too.

3. If there’s no leak, open the affected tap

With no visible leak, leave the main valve open and open the tap that stopped running a little, both hot and cold. As the ice melts, water can escape through the tap instead of building pressure inside the pipe. Stay within reach of the valve: at the first sign of a leak, close it.

4. Find the frozen section — without opening walls

The usual suspects: pipes in an exterior wall, under a sink against the north wall, in a crawl space, in a poorly insulated addition, or near where the water comes in. An accessible pipe covered in frost, or noticeably colder to the touch, tells you where to look. Open the cabinet doors to let the room’s heat in.

5. Thaw it slowly — never with a flame

A hair dryer, an electric space heater you never leave unattended, towels soaked in hot water: it’s slow, and that’s the point. Start at the open tap and work back toward the frozen section, so meltwater has somewhere to go.

Never use a torch, a lighter or a propane heater indoors: fire inside the walls, carbon monoxide, and a pipe heated too fast can split. Don’t plug anything in if you’re standing in water.

6. If water has already run

• Don’t walk into a room where water reaches outlets, appliances or the electrical panel. Call a master electrician.
• Take photos before moving anything: the water, the pipe, the damage, the thermostat. Your insurer will want them.
• Call your insurer or broker as soon as you can and write down the claim number.
• Call a plumber who holds a licence from the Régie du bâtiment du Québec. You can check a contractor’s licence online in the RBQ registry.

7. Find out why the house got cold

A pipe doesn’t freeze in a heated house. Check the thermostat, the heating breaker, the propane or oil level, and whether there was an outage: Hydro-Québec publishes grid status and current outages. Until the cause is fixed, the pipe will freeze again.

Why it happens — especially at a Townships cottage

Cold isn’t the only culprit. Water expands as it freezes. Trapped between an ice plug and a closed tap, it drives up the pressure in the part of the pipe that’s still liquid — and that’s often where the pipe gives. The damage shows up at the thaw. That’s why so many burst pipes are discovered during a mild spell, not during the cold snap.

Cottages weren’t built for winter. Plenty of cottages in Sutton, Potton or Frelighsburg started out as three-season places and were added onto later. Pipes still run through crawl spaces, thinly insulated exterior walls or additions over unheated space.

In the country, heat depends on more things. A power outage on the mountain, a propane delivery held up by an unploughed road, a tripped breaker: the house cools for hours and nobody knows.

The thermostat doesn’t tell the whole story. It measures the room it’s in, often on the main floor. The basement, the crawl space or the cabinet under the north-wall sink can be much colder.

Prevention: what you can do, and what belongs to a plumber

What an owner can do:

• Find the main shut-off, label it clearly, and check in the fall that it turns.
• Keep the heat on all winter at a setting your plumber or insurer recommends — not as low as it goes to save money.
• Leave cabinet doors open under sinks that sit against an exterior wall.
• Shut off and drain outdoor taps before the first frost.
• Leave a thermometer in the coldest room, and remember that a connected alert stops working when the power or the internet goes down.

What belongs to an RBQ-licensed contractor:

• Rerouting or insulating pipes in an exterior wall or crawl space.
• Installing heat cable or frost-free outdoor taps.
• Repairing or replacing a split section.
• Fully draining the plumbing and putting antifreeze in the traps if the cottage is closed for winter.

In an empty house, how long before anyone notices?

Nobody hears water running in an empty cottage. A pipe that splits in the basement keeps running until someone walks in: if the next visit is three weeks away, the water has three weeks. Signs you can see from outside are rare — ice under a door, frost on a basement window — and someone has to be there to see them.

How often someone stops by sets the maximum length of any damage. It’s also what many policies look at: several set specific conditions when a home is unoccupied, such as keeping the heat on, shutting the water off or having regular visits. Conditions vary from one insurer to the next: reread your vacancy clause or ask your broker what applies to your cottage.

What we look at on a visit

Every visit, we read the thermostat and the thermometer left in the coldest room, check the position of the main shut-off, look at the incoming water line and its fittings, log the water meter or well pressure gauge, and open the cabinets under the sinks. Every finding is photographed and time-stamped in the report.

If something’s off, we call you the same day, with photos. If needed, we meet an RBQ-licensed plumber on site and document the work.