What to Do When a Pipe Bursts in Altoona: The First Five Minutes

A pipe just let go in your basement, or the faucet that worked last night now gives you nothing. Both situations start the same way. Find the main water shutoff and close it. Everything else, the towels, the buckets, the phone call, the insurance question, comes after the water stops. A quarter inch of split copper will keep filling the room for as long as the main stays open.

This is written for people in Altoona, Hollidaysburg and the rest of Blair County who are standing in a wet basement right now, and for people reading it in October so they are not standing in one in January. It covers the first five minutes after a break, how to handle a pipe that is frozen but still intact, and what to do this fall so the line does not freeze in the first place.

Riley, Inc. has done plumbing in Altoona since 1933. Our plumbing service and repair work covers water and drain lines, faucet and leak repair, and burst pipes, for residential, commercial and industrial customers.

The first five minutes after a pipe bursts

Water damage is a function of time. The list below is in priority order, and the order matters more than the speed.

1. Close the main water shutoff. This is the single action that changes the outcome. In most Altoona houses the main valve is in the basement on the wall facing the street, within a few feet of where the service line comes through the foundation, usually just before or after the water meter. It will be a round wheel handle or a lever. A wheel turns clockwise until it stops. A lever turns a quarter turn so it sits crosswise to the pipe.
2. Deal with electricity before you deal with water. If water is running near outlets, an electrical panel, a furnace or a boiler, do not wade in. Shut off the affected circuits at the panel if you can reach it from a dry spot. If the panel itself is wet or you cannot get to it safely, leave the area and call your electric utility.
3. Open the taps. With the main closed, open the lowest cold faucet in the building, usually a basement or laundry tub, and then a faucet upstairs. That drains the pressure and the standing water out of the pipes instead of out of the break. Flush a toilet once to empty the tank.
4. Shut down the water heater. If the main is off and the heater is a gas unit, turn the gas control to pilot or off. On an electric unit, switch off its breaker. A water heater that fires on an empty or draining tank is a second problem you do not need. Our water heater page covers the rest of that equipment.
5. Contain, photograph, then call. Buckets under the drip, towels at the doorway, and anything absorbent or valuable lifted off the floor. Take photographs before you clean up, because your insurer will ask. Then call (814) 942-6772.

If you cannot find the main shutoff at all, there is a second one outside: the curb stop, a small metal or plastic lid set in the ground between the sidewalk and the street. It belongs to the water utility and takes a long key to operate. Call your water provider rather than digging at it yourself.

A pipe that is frozen but has not burst yet

You turn on a faucet in cold weather and get a trickle, or nothing. That is a frozen pipe, and you have a window before it splits. The American Red Cross gives the method, and it is worth following exactly.

Keep the faucet open. As the ice melts, water starts moving through the frozen section, and the flow itself helps clear the rest. Then apply heat to the pipe: an electric heating pad wrapped around it, a hair dryer, a portable space heater kept well away from anything flammable, or towels soaked in hot water. Work from the faucet end back toward the frozen section, not the other way, so meltwater has somewhere to go. Keep the heat on until full pressure comes back.

The Red Cross is specific about what not to use: no blowtorch, no kerosene or propane heater, no charcoal stove, no open flame of any kind. Two reasons. An open flame in a joist bay is how a plumbing problem becomes a house fire, and heating one spot of a frozen pipe fast can turn trapped ice and water into steam pressure that splits the pipe you were trying to save.

Check the other faucets while you are at it. If one pipe froze, the pipes beside it saw the same temperature. Likely places to look are against exterior walls and where the water service comes through the foundation.

Call a plumber if you cannot locate the frozen section, if it is inside a finished wall or ceiling where you cannot reach it, or if the heat is not restoring pressure. A frozen line inside a wall is not a place to improvise.

Why Blair County pipes freeze when they do

Freezing is not about the calendar. It is about how long a pipe sits below freezing, which the National Weather Service defines as an air temperature under 32 degrees Fahrenheit. In Altoona, the average daily low crosses that line in November and stays under it through February.

Averages are not the whole story. A single night at 8 degrees with wind on an exposed north wall will freeze a pipe that survived a mild December. But the shape of the chart tells you when to have the work done, and it is not in the middle of the cold months.

Where pipes actually freeze in an older Altoona house

Much of the housing stock here predates modern insulation standards, and the plumbing was often added or rerouted long after the house was built. The Red Cross names the same three categories of pipe every time, and all three are common locally.

• Pipes exposed to severe cold outdoors. Outdoor hose bibs are the most common single failure. A garden hose left connected through the fall traps water at the bib, and that is where the split happens. Lawn sprinkler and pool supply lines belong in the same group.
• Supply pipes in unheated interior spaces. Basements that were never fully conditioned, crawl spaces, attics, attached garages, and the run of pipe inside a kitchen sink cabinet on an outside wall.
• Pipes against exterior walls with little or no insulation. A porch enclosed in the 1970s, an addition, a bathroom stacked over an unheated space. These are the ones that freeze inside a finished wall, where you cannot see them and cannot reach them.

There is also a category that does not freeze but fails in the same weather. If you have heat in some rooms and not others, that is a heating problem, not a plumbing one, and a cold room is a room where pipes are now at risk. We have written separately about one radiator staying cold when the rest of the house is warm.

What to do before the first hard freeze

This is October work, and most of it takes an afternoon. The list follows the Red Cross guidance.

• Disconnect the hoses. Remove, drain and store every outdoor hose. Close the inside valve that feeds each hose bib, then open the bib outside and leave it open, so any water left in the pipe has room to expand instead of splitting the line.
• Drain sprinkler and pool supply lines per the manufacturer’s directions. Do not put antifreeze in them.
• Insulate the pipes you can see. Foam pipe sleeves on exposed runs in the basement, crawl space, attic and garage. Both the hot and the cold line. Heat tape and heat cable work too, but only a UL-listed product installed to its instructions.
• Insulate the space, not just the pipe. Adding insulation to an attic, basement or crawl space raises the temperature around everything in it.
• Keep the garage door shut if there are supply lines in the garage. This one is free.
• Know where the main shutoff is, today. Walk down, find it, turn it once to confirm it actually closes, and turn it back. A gate valve that has not moved in fifteen years is often seized, and the night of a burst pipe is a bad time to find that out. If it will not turn, that is a valve replacement, and it is small scheduled work now rather than a flooded basement later.

And during a cold snap: let a cold faucet on an exposed line drip, open the cabinet doors under sinks on outside walls so warm room air reaches the pipes, and hold the thermostat at the same setting day and night. If the house will be empty, the Red Cross recommends leaving the heat on and set no lower than 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

Repair, or replace the run

A single clean split in an accessible length of copper is a repair. A plumber cuts out the damaged section and puts in new pipe, and you have water back the same visit.

The conversation changes when any of these are true. The same run has frozen more than once, because the cause is where the pipe sits, not the pipe. The line is inside a wall or ceiling and has to be opened up anyway. The pipe is galvanized steel, already narrowed by corrosion, and a freeze finished off a section that was going to fail regardless. In those cases, rerouting the run through conditioned space, or replacing the length rather than patching it, is the repair that holds.

Riley, Inc. handles both. We do service and repairs on water and drain lines, and installation and replacement of water lines, across residential, commercial and industrial buildings in Altoona, Hollidaysburg and the surrounding area.

Common questions about burst and frozen pipes

How do I find my main water shutoff?

Start in the basement on the wall facing the street, near where the service line enters through the foundation and close to the meter. Look for a wheel or lever handle on the pipe. If the house has a crawl space instead, check where the line comes up through the floor. If there is genuinely no interior valve, the curb stop outside is the backup, and that one is the water utility’s to operate.

Can I use a space heater to thaw a pipe?

Yes, a portable electric space heater is on the Red Cross list, as long as it is kept well away from anything flammable. A hair dryer, an electric heating pad or hot wet towels all work as well. What is never acceptable is a blowtorch, a propane or kerosene heater, or a charcoal stove.

The pipe thawed on its own and nothing leaked. Am I fine?

Probably, but watch it. A pipe can crack while frozen and only leak once the ice melts and pressure returns. Check the area around that run, and the ceiling below it, for a day or two. Also treat it as a warning: that pipe will freeze again next cold snap unless something about its insulation or location changes.

Should I turn the water back on myself after a repair?

Open the main slowly, not all at once, and have someone watching the repaired section while you do it. A fast refill sends a pressure surge through the system. If a plumber did the work, they will pressurize and check it before they leave.

What if a pipe bursts outside your office hours?

Shut the water off at the main first. That stops the damage whether or not anyone answers a phone. Then send the details through the request a quote form, including the address, where the break is and whether the water is off. It will be waiting when the office opens at 8:00 AM.

Getting it fixed in Altoona and Blair County

Riley, Inc. is at 2701 Washington Ave, Altoona, PA 16601. The phone is (814) 942-6772 and the office is open Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. The company is family owned and operated, started in 1933 by Charles D. Riley during the Great Depression, and is now run by his grandson with two great grandsons in service. Thirteen master, journeyman and apprentice plumbers work out of nine service vans, with more than 250 years of combined experience between them. The full history is on our About page.

For a burst pipe, a frozen line or pre-winter work on the pipes in an unheated space, call (814) 942-6772 or request a quote. The cheapest version of this job is the one booked in October.

Sources: American Red Cross, Preventing and Thawing Frozen Pipes, read 30 September 2026. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Monthly Climate Normals 1991 to 2020, station ALTOONA 3 W, PA, read 30 September 2026. National Weather Service, Cold Weather Safety, read 30 September 2026.

• Category: Plumbing