If a tap has slowed to a trickle, you have a frozen section and possibly a break you cannot see yet. Leave that faucet open — it is relieving the pressure that would otherwise split the pipe, and it gives meltwater somewhere to go.

Warm the pipe with an electric heating pad, a hair dryer, warm towels or a space heater kept well clear of anything that burns. Work from the faucet back toward the frozen section; heating the far side first traps meltwater behind the ice with nowhere to escape. Never use a blowtorch, a propane or kerosene heater or a charcoal stove — that is how a water loss becomes a fire loss. Never use an electrical appliance while standing in water. And if the pipe is PEX, be aware that heat can compromise it without leaving a mark; the manufacturers say thawed PEX may need replacing even when it looks fine.

If you cannot find the frozen section, cannot reach it, or the pipe is in a wall or slab, stop and call a plumber. And watch what happens as it thaws — that is when a break that already exists starts to show itself.

Let a tap drip during a hard freeze — but understand why, because the reason is usually explained wrong. It is not that moving water resists freezing. It is that an open faucet relieves pressure, and pressure is what bursts pipes. A pipe can freeze solid and still not burst if one end is open. The drip can be very slight. Where a fixture has both hot and cold lines, let both contribute, because both can freeze. At one drip per second you are using roughly 3,000 gallons a year — against an average water damage claim of over $15,000.

Hold a steady temperature, day and night. Setting back the thermostat overnight during a cold snap saves a little on heat and risks a great deal. Michigan DIFS recommends at least 65°F; much of the insurance industry says 55°F. If you are leaving for more than a day, the higher number is cheap insurance.

Open cabinet doors, close the garage, disconnect the hoses. Cabinets on exterior walls shut warm air away from the pipes that need it. A disconnected hose lets a frost-free sillcock actually drain — with the hose attached it cannot, which is why so many of them split. If a screw-on vacuum breaker is fitted, it has to be loosened to let the faucet drain.

Know where your main shutoff is before you need it — and test it. Valves that have not been turned in fifteen years seize. Finding that out at two in the morning, in the dark, with water coming through a ceiling, is the worst possible time.

Heat cable, if you use it, has rules. Use a product certified to the pipe-heating standard, plug it into a GFCI outlet, run it directly against the pipe and never on top of insulation, never overlap it, and inspect it every autumn for cracks or charring. Replace uncertified cable more than three years old.

Two things you will read that are wrong: putting automotive antifreeze in plumbing is both dangerous and against code, and running hot water down a drain does nothing to prevent a freeze — a drain is not pressurized, so there is no pressure to relieve.

An ice dam forms when the upper roof is above freezing while the eave is below it. Snow melts, runs down, refreezes at the cold overhang, and the ridge of ice that builds up holds meltwater on the roof until it backs up under the shingles. The water then finds the ceiling, the wall cavity and the insulation.

The cause is almost never the roof. The National Roofing Contractors Association — the roofing industry’s own body — puts it plainly: ice dams are primarily caused by heat leaking through inadequately built thermal and air barriers. Warm air escaping into the attic warms the deck; snow melts; the eave refreezes it. Michigan’s residential code requires only R-38 in the attic — and as little as R-30 where it crosses the wall plate, which is exactly where dams form — while the Department of Energy recommends R-60 for our climate zone.

If water is coming through the ceiling right now, do not open it up. Cutting the ceiling lets warm air reach the roof sheathing and speeds up the melt feeding the dam. Catch the water, and if you must drain a bulging spot make the smallest hole that will do it. The ceiling comes open after the event, not during it.

On removal: every manufacturer and trade body prohibits the obvious methods. Hammers, chisels, axes and picks damage shingles — and shingles get brittle below about 40°F, so cold-weather chipping breaks them. Pressure washing strips granules and shortens the roof’s life. Chemical de-icers and ice-melt tablets can damage roofing, siding and planting, and may void the shingle warranty. That leaves controlled low-pressure heat, and a roof rake used from the ground on the first three to four feet above the fascia — with real care around overhead power lines and falling snow.

One Michigan-specific point worth knowing: the state’s residential code already answers the ice barrier question with a yes. An eave ice barrier is a code requirement here, not an upsell.

Commercial freeze losses are not simply bigger versions of residential ones. After one major freeze event, a state insurance department’s own data showed residential claims averaging around $11,500 while commercial claims averaged close to $75,000 — and those figures exclude business interruption entirely.

The reasons are structural. Buildings sit empty over holidays with the heat turned down. Nobody walks the back of house for days. And fire sprinkler systems run water through unheated attics, concealed spaces and loading docks — one insurer’s study of burst pipe claims found that over half involved sprinkler piping, and that those claims ran a third more expensive than the rest.

If your building is sprinklered, the usual winterizing advice is exactly backwards. The standard policy requires you to continue the water supply and maintain heat in a sprinklered building — shutting the water off to protect it can forfeit your coverage. Fire code requires wet sprinkler piping to be kept at a minimum of 40°F, and a system found to contain ice is treated as impaired: as far as the code is concerned, the building has lost its fire protection, whether or not anything has leaked.

Vacant commercial buildings carry a separate trap. Once a building has been vacant beyond the period named in the policy, water damage and sprinkler leakage are commonly excluded outright, and other losses are paid at a reduced percentage. If you own or manage a property that is sitting empty this winter, that is worth reading before the cold arrives rather than after.

We work with property managers, facility directors and carriers across Metro Detroit and the Blue Water Area, and we will put a freeze response plan in place before the season rather than meeting you for the first time at 3am in January.