Not only has it been cold, but multiple days ahead at the start of the new year are forecast with daytime high temperatures below freezing. High temps Monday and Tuesday may not crest the freezing mark with lows in the teens, and the extreme cold can break plumbing lines.
Exposed water and sewer lines and improperly installed lines that don’t drain properly along with well pumps and garden hose spigots are at risk among other things.
Larry Satterwhite, owner/plumber of RK&B Plumbing in Henderson, said a big thing folks fail to do is unscrew the garden hose from outside spigots. As water freezes in the exposed hose it transfers the cold back into the spigot and into the pipe which can then freeze. Depending on your spigot type, water can go everywhere.
Photo by Larry Satterwhite. He recently replaced an above ground sewer pipe that froze and cracked because it was originally installed with an improper fall.
Satterwhite said even frost-free outdoor fixtures are at risk if the hose is not disconnected because the water is unable to drain from the buffer portion of the spigot. On a frost-free spigot, the water actually cuts off 8-12 inches back from the handle, but if the water can’t drain and freezes, then the next time the water is turned on the tubing will leak. “If a garden hose is attached and water in it is already frozen, the draining can’t occur and every spring when you go to water your plants, you will see water shooting down the bricks on the inside foundation or out by the spigot hole,” he said.
As far as other water and sewer lines, Satterwhite said, “As long as direct air doesn’t get to it, it usually has to be about three or four days of below freezing, and the key is daytime doesn’t get above freezing. When day and night stays below freezing, it’s trouble.”
Make sure if you have a well house that the well pump and lines are covered, shielded from the wind and remember that a single 100 watt light bulb inside the well house works wonders at preventing a freeze.
(RK&B Plumbing is an advertising client of WIZS. This is a news article and not an advertisement.)