Long periods of freezing temperatures can end up a nightmare for people who discover water gushing from broken pipes and for the people answering the phones at a plumbing company.
Plumbing companies have been handling 50 to 75 calls each for help fixing broken pipes. Water freezes into ice, which expands enough to crack or break a pipe.
Bill Mello of Mello Plumbing said most of the calls started coming on Thursday as things began to thaw. When the water in a pipe turns to ice, it’s solid and doesn’t leak until it’s back to liquid.
Kyle Stephens with Orange County Plumbing has also been inundated with calls to fix broken pipes. “First the storm and now this. People can’t get a break,” he said.
Orange County Plumbing had 50 to 75 calls for broken pipes on Thursday and he estimates they fixed about 50 leaks. Some houses had more than one leak.
The leaks have been coming from houses on piers, or at hose connections at faucets. In addition, pipes in walls on the north side of a house have been breaking, even behind a brick wall.
Stephens said a house in Bridge City had a broken pipe in the attic pouring down into the house. “Even spraying insulation in an attic and pipes are covered isn’t enough in this kind of of cold,” he said.
An actic cold front came through the county on Tuesday morning and temperatures dropped to freezing by noon. When people got off work Tuesday at 5 p.m., the temperature was 28 degrees at the National Weather Service station at the Orange County Airport.
The temperature was down to 19 degrees Wednesday morning and was still at 32 degrees at 1:30 that afternoon. The reading got up to 37 degrees at 4 p.m. and then began dropping to 22 degrees Thursday morning.
The county had freezing or below freezing temperatures for about 55 hours, excluding three hours Wednesday afternoon. Even on Thursday, the reading was at 32 degrees until late in the morning. It warmed up to 40 degrees for Thursday afternoon.
Both Mello and Stephens said the best way to prevent frozen pipes is to run small streams or steady drips of water from faucets during a freeze.
Mello said people can turn off their water at the source and empty the pipes, but it doesn’t work unless you have a compressor to blow all the water out. When the water is drained, pockets of water can remain in pipes and will freeze.
Stephens said severe arctic weather doesn’t happen a lot down in this area so pipes are not as insulated as ones up north. His pipes are under the slab of his house, but he admitted his faucet at his outdoor kitchen froze because he forgot about it.
People can put insulation on pipes, but it might not be enough for long, hard freezes. Mello said even newspaper and plastic can be used as insulation around the pipes. Both said not to forget outside faucets and hose connections.
Mello said people should also leave inside sink cabinet doors open do the pipes get more heat from the room.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
Social Media