Freeze Season in Oklahoma: Protecting Your Pipes and What to Do When One Bursts

Why an Oklahoma freeze catches people off guard

Oklahoma doesn't get the kind of sustained deep freeze that forces every house in the state to be built around it, and that's exactly why a hard freeze here does more damage than the same temperature would somewhere further north. Pipes are often run with less insulation, exterior faucets aren't always freeze-proof, and a lot of homeowners simply haven't had to think about it in the years between cold snaps. Then a night in the teens or single digits hits, and pipes that have never frozen before finally do.

Before the cold hits

• Disconnect garden hoses and shut off exterior faucets from the inside if your house has a shut-off for them
• Let a thin stream of water drip from faucets on exterior walls during the coldest nights; moving water is much harder to freeze than still water
• Open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls so warm household air can reach the pipes
• Know where your home's main water shut-off valve is before you ever need it in a hurry
• Keep your thermostat set consistently rather than turning the heat down low overnight during a hard freeze

That last point matters more than people expect. A house that gets cold overnight, even by a few degrees, can be enough for a poorly insulated section of pipe to freeze solid, and it's a lot cheaper to run the furnace a little longer than to pay for a burst pipe repair afterward.

Know where your shut-off is, before you need it

The single biggest difference between a burst pipe that floods a room and one that gets caught early is whether someone in the house knows where the main shut-off valve is and can get to it fast. Find it now, not at midnight during a freeze, and make sure everyone in the household knows where it is too.

The moment a pipe bursts

If you hear water running somewhere it shouldn't, see water coming through a ceiling or wall, or find a split section of pipe, shut off the water at the main first. That stops the damage from getting worse while you make the call. Don't wait until morning, and don't try to thaw or repair a frozen pipe yourself, since a frozen line under pressure can fail again the moment it starts to thaw if it isn't properly repaired.

After the water's off

Once the water's shut off, get us on the phone. We're open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including during the exact kind of cold snap that causes most of these calls, and burst pipe repair is one of the most common jobs we take during a hard freeze. Move anything valuable away from standing water while you wait, but leave the actual repair to a licensed plumber. A pipe that gets patched wrong the first time tends to fail again, usually somewhere worse.

When one bad freeze means more than one repair

A hard freeze doesn't always limit the damage to a single pipe. If several sections of older piping in a house all took the same cold at once, patching each spot as it fails can end up costing more, and taking longer, than addressing the whole run. In those cases, home re-piping is worth talking through with whoever comes out, rather than scheduling a fourth or fifth burst pipe repair call over the same winter.

What it costs when you call

A burst pipe is stressful enough without wondering what the repair is going to cost before anyone's even looked at it. We give free estimates over the phone, price the repair up front once we're on site, and match a fair competing estimate if you've already had someone else out. If the freeze took out more than one section of pipe and a bigger repair or a re-pipe makes more sense than patching each spot separately, financing is available so it doesn't all have to come out of pocket at once.

Getting help fast

Call (405) 282-7586 in Edmond and the Oklahoma City metro, or (918) 279-7586 in Broken Arrow and Tulsa. Phone estimates are free, most repairs happen the same day, and every technician we send is a certified journeyman or master plumber, background checked and in uniform. We back general repairs with a 90 day parts and labor warranty, so a freeze repair done right stays done.