Winterizing a high desert home against frozen pipe bursts

Frozen pipe calls are one of our most common winter jobs around Fort Irwin, Barstow and Victorville, and almost every customer says the same thing: they did not think it got cold enough here for that. The high desert regularly drops into the twenties overnight between December and February, and swings forty degrees in a single day.

Why desert houses are more vulnerable, not less

Housing stock here is built for summer. That means plumbing routed through unconditioned attic space and along exterior walls, minimal pipe insulation, and irrigation that stays pressurized year round. In a climate built for cold, those pipes would be routed internally and lagged. Here they often are not.

Water expands by about nine percent as it freezes. The burst usually does not happen at the ice itself — pressure builds between the blockage and a closed faucet downstream, and the pipe fails at the weakest fitting in that run. Which is why the damage often shows up in a different room from the frozen section.

Before the first freeze

1. Disconnect and drain hoses

   A hose left connected holds water against the spigot and the short run of pipe behind it, which is almost always in an exterior wall. This is the single most common burst point on a desert house.

2. Insulate what is exposed

   Foam sleeve on any pipe you can see in the attic, garage, crawl space or along an exterior wall. It is inexpensive and takes an afternoon.

3. Blow out the irrigation

   Sprinkler lines and backflow preventers sit above ground and freeze first. Shut the system off at its valve and drain it before December.

4. Find your main shut-off now

   Locate it, make sure it actually turns, and make sure everyone in the house knows where it is. Looking for it at 2am with water coming through the ceiling is not the time.

On a night below freezing

• Leave a pencil-width trickle running from the fixture furthest from the main. Moving water is far harder to freeze, and it relieves the pressure that actually causes bursts.
• Open vanity and kitchen cabinet doors so heated room air reaches the pipes behind them.
• Keep the thermostat at the same temperature overnight rather than setting it back.
• If you are away, do not drop the heat below 55F — the saving is a few dollars and the risk is a flooded house nobody finds for a week.

If a pipe is already frozen

A tap that gives nothing but a trickle on a cold morning usually means ice. You may be able to save it.

• Open the affected tap so meltwater has somewhere to go and pressure can release.
• Warm the pipe with a hairdryer or heat lamp, working from the tap back toward the frozen section.
• Never use a blowtorch or any open flame — it is a fire risk and it can boil trapped water and split the pipe.
• If you cannot locate the frozen section, or the pipe is inside a wall, shut off the main and call a plumber.

The thaw is when you find out

Plenty of bursts are silent until the ice melts and pressure returns. On the first warm morning after a hard freeze, walk the house: check ceilings under the attic run, look under every sink, and go out and look at the spigots. Finding it at nine in the morning rather than nine at night is worth several thousand dollars.