[Fern Senti]

Can I start at the connection of the pipe coming to the house, and take everything apart piece by piece measuring each piece in diameter length thickness, and tape each with a number and starting with 1... also drawing pipe layout and bifurcations etc as I go. Like small areas at a time? Desperate times require desperate measures. I thought I was going to have a house to retire and a bad frost occurred.

 

[Mike Swearingen]

Fern,
I assume that you have old obsolete galvanized steel water supply pipe coming from the meter that has frozen and burst? Probably 3/4"?
If so, the easiest thing for you to do is to replace it with PVC white plastic (you can use PVC for cold water only)... just make sure that you bury it deeper...below the local frost line.
If you can borrow a reciprocating saw with a metal cutting blade (or just use a hacksaw), you can cut the piece that has burst in half and then remove it from the nearest fittings on either end with a pipe wrench (counter-clockwise). Hold the galvanized pipe coulings that you will be connecting to with a backup pipe wrench in the opposite direction.
Then you can install male PVC couplings into the good threaded female ends of the galvanized couplings at each end. (The correct PVC fittings should be threaded on one send to screw into the galvanized couplings, smooth on the other to accept the PVC pipe.) Then just glue a single section of Schedule 40 PVC into the two PVC fittings, using PVC primer and PVC glue.
Before screwing the PVC couplings into the galvanized couplings, wrap about 3 wraps of teflon plumber's tape around the threads of the PVC fittings clockwise only as the end faces you.
Good luck!
Mike