Preventing Frozen Pipes in Arkansas: What Actually Matters
Why Arkansas gets caught out
States with long winters build for them. Arkansas gets a handful of hard freezes a year, which is exactly the situation that produces burst pipes — housing stock that is not built with sustained cold in mind, meeting temperatures that arrive suddenly and sit for two or three days.
The damage is also concentrated. A freeze event produces very few calls while it is cold and a great many the day it thaws, because a frozen pipe does not leak until the ice melts.
The pipes that actually freeze
Not all pipes are equally at risk, and knowing which are lets you spend your effort well.
Crawl space lines are the first to go. They are exposed, often uninsulated, and the crawl space is at outdoor temperature.
Exterior wall runs, particularly to a kitchen sink on an outside wall, are next. There is often very little insulation between the pipe and the outside.
Hose bibs and outdoor spigots freeze readily, and a hose left connected traps water against the valve and makes it far worse.
Garage and unheated utility room lines, and anything in an attic, round out the list.
What to do before the cold arrives
Disconnect and drain garden hoses. This is the single highest-value action and takes two minutes per hose.
Insulate the exposed runs you identified. Foam sleeve is inexpensive and available anywhere, and covering the crawl space and garage runs handles most of the risk.
Close crawl space vents during a freeze and open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls so household heat reaches the pipes.
Know where your shutoff is, which is the one that matters most if the rest fails.
Dripping taps: worth it, with a caveat
Letting a tap drip during a hard freeze does help, because moving water freezes less readily and an open tap gives expanding ice somewhere to go. Pressure between an ice plug and a closed tap is what actually splits pipes.
The caveat is that dripping one tap protects one run. Choose the tap furthest from where the water enters the house, and if you have fixtures on more than one exterior wall, drip one on each. A pencil-lead stream of both hot and cold is enough.
If a pipe has already frozen
No water from a tap during a freeze means a line is frozen somewhere between the source and that tap. Open the tap so melting water has an exit, then apply gentle heat — a hair dryer or a space heater at a safe distance — working from the tap back toward the frozen section.
Never use an open flame. Every year that turns a plumbing problem into a fire.
If you cannot reach the frozen section, or if the pipe has already split, shut the water off at the main and call (833) 435-9778. Frozen line calls run around the clock during a cold snap and it is far better to catch a split before the thaw.