Frozen Pipes

What a nightmare today! Over 200 calls, nearly 150 frozen pipe calls, thats what you get with 10 degree weather. Hopefully, not the same thing tomorrow. The two most common calls today were frozen hose bibbs and no water to the house. To prevent your main line from freezing let a faucet drip steadily when the weather dips to the low temperatures. To prevent your hose bibbs from freezing, turn off the valve indoor, pull the vacuum breaker to drain the water (if you have one, some older houses don't), alternatively and or additionally put a Styrofoam cover hose bibb cover over the pipe. Some pipes systems are just improperly installed exterior cold wall, no insulation, no cutoffs,....all I can say is let the faucet drip. Today most of the calls came in after 11AM as the pipes started to defrost. One ladies, shower did not work this morning, when we arrived the shower was running in the bathroom, in this case the only recommendation would to be let the hot and cold drip in that shower, (exterior wall mounted valves). A few of the other popular freezes were outside standpipes, obviously need to be insulated or covered, or buried in meter boxes. Pipes near crawl space breather vents,.....put baffled vents or stuff insulation in the windows....not to mention massive heat losses for the house. Two repair stations pipes froze in the bays, perhaps drip faucets or close doors. So in summary, know where your shutoff valves are located in the case of emergency. Top materials for the day for leaks were CPVC, PVC and Copper. Only 2-freeze related polybutylene leaks. Three of the most catastrophic failures (flood wise) were CPVC, because when it freezes it explodes........Once again, excuse any grammar errors.......I did not proof read.

Mike Whitman,
Atlantis Plumbing