Need an urgent London Frozen pipe repair?
If you have an urgent need for a London frozen pipe repair, you should call us here CW Services Plumbing and Heating. You shouldn’t try and repair it yourself because you can easily cause some serious damage which could be quite costly.
You may well be of the opinion that the plumbing system in your home is in perfect working order. The chances of a pipe bursting and then causing your house or apartment to flood, probably don’t enter your head.
A cold spell can cause your pipes to free
However, there is something that you may not have thought about, and that is the fact that during a cold spell, water will freeze in any unprotected pipes. When the frozen water then melts, the pipe will expand and this can lead to its rupture.
If you live in the London area and your pipes do freeze, you may well need to organise someone like us here at CW Services Plumbing and Heating to carry out a frozen pipe repair in London.
There is an old saying that prevention is better than cure, and that is certainly the case when it comes to frozen pipes. Taking the right preventative action before a cold spell begins can save you an awful lot of inconvenience and expense, and this applies to all – home owners, landlords, and tenants.
Preventative steps to stop your pipes freezing
The water pipes that are most at risk from freezing are those that are in unheated areas of your property. The sorts of areas we are talking about are lofts, garages and any outhouses. The simplest measure that you can take is to buy some bespoke pipe insulation from your local DIY supermarket or plumbing material supplier. You can then use this to wrap it around any vulnerable pipework.
When you buy lagging you’ll find that there are two sizes; one for 15mm pipes and one for 22mm pipes, you should choose the thickest lagging that the space you are working in will allow. The only tools you will need are a junior hacksaw to cut the lagging to length and some tie-wraps to secure the lagging to the piping. When you are wrapping the pipes it is important to remember to cover them completely otherwise frost can attack even the smallest uncovered section and cause any water to freeze.
DIY London frozen pipe repair
If you have a fait-accomplis and your pipes were not lacked and have subsequently frozen, you can try a DIY repair, although you need to be very careful to not burst the pipes yourself. Before you start to try and unfreeze the ice inside the pipes, you must open any appropriate taps. This will allow any steam that builds up as you defrost the ice, to escape. You should also begin your unfreezing operations at the opposite end of the pipe to where the taps are located.
There are two popular methods of unfreezing. The safest is to soak some sort of towelling in hot water and wrap this around the frozen pipe. The other thing you can do is to use a blow torch. However because of the intense heat that can be applied to a particular section of pipe you need to be very careful not to cause the pipe to burst.
You should place some fireproof material behind the pipe and in between the pipe on the wall to avoid starting a fire or damaging the wall. In order to prevent the heat from accumulating in a single spot, you should move the head of the blowtorch backwards and forwards.
Call in the professionals
To be on the safe side, if you do need an urgent London frozen pipe repair, we would always recommend calling in the professionals (someone like CW Services Plumbing and Heating) to do the job for you. We operate a 24/7 emergency callout service and you can contact us on 020 7733 6812 or 07949 095 184.
