What is a frozen or burst pipe repair?
A frozen pipe hasn't necessarily burst — ice inside the line blocks flow, and you get no water or a trickle at a fixture. A burst pipe has already split, usually right where it thawed and pressure had nowhere to go. The repair is two jobs in one: stop the water (shut-off valve or main), then cut out and replace the damaged section of pipe. If it hasn't split yet, we can sometimes thaw it in place and wrap it before it becomes a bigger job.
Most of what we see isn't inside heated living space. It's a crawlspace line running under an old floor with no insulation, a hose bib that was never shut off for winter, or a pipe run through an uninsulated exterior wall or garage. Portland houses weren't built for hard freezes, so these spots get missed.
When do you need this?
- No water at a faucet, or just a trickle, during or right after a cold snap
- Water stains on a ceiling or wall, or water pooling where it shouldn't be
- A hose bib that's cracked or dripping after a freeze — often the first sign a supply line inside is also damaged
- A crawlspace or garage pipe you can see is frosted or has ice on the outside
- You're back from being away and the heat was off or turned down during a freeze
If you shut off the main and there's still water flowing somewhere, or you can hear running water in a wall or floor, that's an active leak — treat it like an emergency, not a wait-and-see.
How does the visit go?
We find the shut-off first, because stopping the water matters more than diagnosing the exact cause in the first five minutes. Then we trace the line to find where it's frozen or split — crawlspace, attic, exterior wall, hose bib connection. If it's just frozen and intact, we thaw it carefully (not with an open flame near old wiring or insulation) and check for cracks once water is moving again, since a pipe can freeze, crack, and not leak until it thaws.
If it's burst, we cut out the damaged section and replace it, matching to what's already there — copper, PEX, or galvanized, depending on the age of the house. We'll flag if the surrounding pipe is old enough that a patch is a short-term fix and a longer repipe run is the better call. Before we leave, we talk through what let it freeze in the first place — missing insulation, an open crawlspace vent, an unprotected hose bib — and what it'd take to fix that spot so it's not a repeat call next January.
What affects the price
- Where the pipe is: an accessible crawlspace repair is simpler than one behind finished drywall or in a slab
- How much pipe is damaged: one split section versus a run that froze and cracked in multiple places
- Pipe material and what it's matched to: copper, PEX, galvanized
- Whether drywall, insulation, or flooring has to come out and go back
- Water damage beyond the pipe itself — if it's been leaking a while, there's drying and repair beyond plumbing
- Access and time of day — after-hours emergency calls during a cold snap run different than a scheduled daytime repair
We quote the repair before we start, not after.
What's specific to Portland pipes and cold snaps
Portland doesn't freeze often, and that's exactly the problem. Builders here have never had to plan for it the way colder climates do, so pipe runs sit in crawlspaces with open vents, hose bibs go unprotected, and insulation in older Craftsman and bungalow-era houses (a lot of the housing stock inside Portland, Beaverton, and Gresham) was never meant to hold heat around plumbing. When an arctic blast comes through the Gorge — which is the pattern that actually freezes pipes here, cold east wind pushing through the Columbia River Gorge into the metro — it's fast, it's dry, and it finds every uninsulated run in a day or two.
Because it's infrequent, a lot of homeowners don't winterize hose bibs or crawlspace lines every year, and a lot of older houses still have the original galvanized or early copper runs in spots that were fine for 70 mild winters and then aren't fine for one hard one. We see the same handful of failure points across the metro every cold snap: hose bibs, crawlspace lines under additions, and pipe runs in unheated garages that got converted to living space without rerouting the plumbing.
Why Sheltons Construction
We're a licensed Oregon plumbing contractor working the Portland metro — Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties, down to Salem for larger or scheduled jobs. We do this work in the same houses and the same crawlspaces every winter, so we know where to look first instead of guessing. We quote the repair plainly before we start and we're straight about whether a patch will hold or whether the pipe around it needs attention too.
What to do now
If water is actively running where it shouldn't be, shut off the main and call. If you've got no water and suspect a freeze, don't run a torch on it yourself — shut off the fixture, open the tap a crack to relieve pressure, and call. See our emergency plumbing page for what to do while you wait, or go straight to contact us to get someone on the phone.
Once the immediate repair is done, ask about a broader look at leak-prone spots — see leak detection & pipe repair and, if the house is old enough that this won't be the last cold-weather failure, whole-home repiping. If the freeze also knocked out your water heater or its supply line, we cover that separately: water heater repair & installation and tankless water heaters.
Where we cover this
We handle frozen and burst pipe calls across Portland, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham, Tigard, Tualatin, Lake Oswego, West Linn, Oregon City, Milwaukie, Happy Valley, Clackamas, Wilsonville, Troutdale, Sherwood, and Salem.
Related work we also handle: drain cleaning, hydro jetting, sewer camera inspection, sewer line repair & replacement, water pressure problems, bathroom plumbing, kitchen plumbing, toilet repair & installation, faucets & fixtures, garbage disposals, remodel plumbing, and sump pumps & crawlspace drainage for water that's finding its way into a crawlspace after a freeze or heavy rain.