Frozen Pipe Issue

Extreme rookie -

My house is 100 yrs old, and not sure about my pipes. It got down below single digits the other nights and pipes froze. I turned the heat way up hoping to thaw everything out, but that afternoon, a pipe burst. It was in the basement, right after the meter. I turned off the main, and have opened up all the other faucets.

The burst pipe has a thin slit less than 1/2 in long and not very wide at all. Trying to get it dry to use JB Weld. The pipe that is leaking is lower than everything else, and is still dripping. What else can I do besides wait for it to drain?

thanks, Tom

My first response was to tell you to call a plumber however...... you could run down to the box store and get either a compression coupling (my 1st choice) or a ( forgive me lord ) sharkbite coupling. Neither one requires dry pipes and both are miles better than JB Weld would be.

100 year old pipes are probably galvanized and I have not seen a Sharkbite for steel pipe, or anything else ips, although they might make them. The pipe did NOT break this afternoon. It broke last night when it froze, and you FOUND it when it finally thawed out enough to start leaking.

Wasting your time with JB weld. No disrespect intended, but knowing that you are trying it ensures me that you need on-site help from someone more knowledgeable in plumbing than you are.

At a minimum, the damaged section of pipe will need to be cut out and replaced. Anything else is a hack job that will fail again.

Mr. Peter Griffin,

thanks very much for your help. I was able to save a ton of cash with the sharkbites as I repaired and ran to the hardware store between work and law school.

Still have a problem though with water pressure only in the kitchen sink (no problem w/ water pressure before I "fixed" it). All my other faucets are fine.

Here's what I replaced:

Valve after water meter, then put in sharkbite, then copper pipe about 3 inches long, then sharkbite elbow. I had a pipe that was going nowhere and had a leaky valve and I capped off the pipe after cutting off the valve.

I looked up pressure for sharkbites and it seems to be 200 with residential water pressure typically 75, so the sharkbites don't seem to be the problem.

My main valve and valve after the water meter are also open 100% - I checked.

If you do decide to look for some professional help, I recommend checking out Aspect Maintenance - they're very helpful and good rates too

The main water supply shut-off valve might be a gate valve. Those are notorious for failing. If that's it, it gets much messier since you'd have to have the water turned off at the street to then replace that valve. It could also be that when the water was turned off and then back on after the repair, it dislodged a bunch of crud from the insides of the pipes, and you need to clean out the aerators on the valves or showerheads to restore the flow.

Peter - why do you prefer compression couplings over sharkbites ?