With the recent below freezing temperatures here in the South, and sometimes even below zero temps, the danger of frozen and/or burst pipes is very real. We're not prepared for weather that cold. I have a number of friends, and clients too, whose pipes have either frozen, or burst, or both. One of my clients warned me away from the guest bathroom because the water pipes to it had frozen solid. Another friend had pipes burst in their home, the over-the-garage apartment they rent out, and their daughter's home which they also own! When we moved into this house in 2012, the house inspection revealed insulation in the crawl space that was falling down, and Lee was very smart to get that seen to and reinforced very soon after we moved in, as well as some additional insulation in the attic. We've been careful to keep the water moving through the pipes during the worst of the cold, leaving it to just barely run through the night. We thought we'd escaped unscathed. Then I noticed this in the front of the house. It's not horrible. There are no burst pipes. But something for sure sprung a leak. We contacted our plumber, he's coming tomorrow to see what's up and fix whatever's broken. As annoying as it is, it could have been much worse. None of our belongings have been damaged, Lee's pretty sure the foundation hasn't been compromised because it's a small leak of some sort as opposed to a full-on rupture, and the expense of fixing it won't be compounded by having to repair any surrounding structure as some of my friends have had to deal with. We were lucky.
Indeed you were lucky Ronni. Thank goodness you noticed it before it had a chance to develop into a much bigger problem. I hope it's a quick and easy fix for the plumber when he comes. You could ask him if he can recommend the best way to stop frozen or burst pipes in such cold weather.
Sometimes water in the faucet (not the pipe) will freeze and force the faucet open. Water will leak out and freeze as the temperature drops with no repairs needed. It happened to our next door neighbor recently, hopefully that's what happened to yours.
Toni, it would be very handy if it were that easy a problem. It seems though that there's an awful lot of ice (and some of it had clearly melted by the time I took the photo) for it to be just that. But what do I know? I'm no plumber!
Ronni, Did you take the cover off and look at the faucet? open and close the valve? otherwise shut the valve to that faucet off in your basement (there should be one in the line close to the wall where that goes outside) and open the outside faucet and let it drain. We had a cartridge inside the faucet that wouldn't work, and had to have the cartridge itself repaired, but nothing else was damaged. I don't know if it got rust in it or was just faulty to begin with. And it would take a lot more water than that to compromise your basement wall. My DH just fixed a waterline leak for a customer that has been leaking outside the house for over a year. Of course they waited until the coldest weather of the year to suggest that maybe they should get this fixed because now it is starting to fill the walls of the basement and ruining the sidewalk in front of the house as it was making a river around the house....
