Quick takeaways
- Disconnect and drain outdoor hoses by mid-October — every year, without exception.
- Keep the house above 13°C even when you're away. Lower than that, exterior-wall pipes start to freeze.
- Open vanity and kitchen cabinets on the coldest nights so warm air reaches the pipes inside.
- Know where your main shut-off is and that it actually turns. Test it in October, not at 2 a.m. in January.
Before the first freeze (October)
Most of the burst-pipe calls we run in January started with something a homeowner could have done in October. The single highest-impact thing you can do: disconnect every garden hose and drain the outdoor faucet. A hose left attached traps water in the sillcock, that water freezes, expands, and splits the pipe inside your wall — and you don't find out until April when you turn the tap on.
While you're outside, locate the interior shut-off for that outdoor faucet (usually in the basement ceiling) and confirm it actually closes. Many of the Kanata homes we work in have a shut-off that's been seized for years.
- Disconnect and store all garden hoses
- Shut off and drain outdoor faucets at the interior valve
- Test your main water shut-off — it should turn easily
- Replace any obviously corroded supply lines under sinks
- Service your sump pump and check the battery backup
During the cold snap (-20°C and below)
When the forecast calls for sustained -20°C or colder, the homes most at risk are ones with plumbing on exterior walls — common in older Kanata neighbourhoods and in any home with a finished basement bathroom on an outside wall.
Open vanity and kitchen-sink cabinet doors so warmed room air can circulate around the supply lines. If you have a tap you know freezes, let it drip pencil-lead thin — moving water is much harder to freeze than still water, and the trickle relieves pressure if a small ice plug does form.
If you're leaving for the holidays
We get a wave of frozen-pipe and burst-pipe calls every January from snowbirds. The fix is simple: don't turn the heat off when you leave, and ideally don't drop the thermostat below 15°C. Better still — shut the main water off at the meter, then open a tap upstairs and a tap downstairs to drain pressure from the system. If a pipe does freeze and crack, there's no pressurized water to flood the house.
When something does go wrong
If you hear that telltale 'no water at one faucet but everything else works' — that fixture has a frozen line. Shut the water off, open the faucet, and call us. Do not use a propane torch or any open flame on the pipe; we see at least one house fire a year in Ottawa from a well-intentioned homeowner thawing a pipe with a torch.
If you hear water running but can't see where — shut the main off immediately and call. We dispatch 24/7 across Kanata; our response time during a cold snap is usually 30–60 minutes.
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