Pipelines are one of the things you don’t really think about before you are forced to think about it. This week, as snow, ice, and sub-freezing temperatures hit central Texas, many residents faced problems with icing pipelines and leaking water.
Jimmy Maas of KUT spoke with Brad Casebier, CEO of Austin Radiant Plumbing and Air Conditioning, to understand why cold weather is so difficult for the plumbing in our home, and what to do if a leak occurs.
KUT: Brad, you have been doing this for a long time. You have been with your father since you were a teenager. Have you seen anything like this?
Brad Kesbill: No, we have never seen anything close to this. So it has been-I don’t know the exact number of years-but more than 30 years of pipeline experience. No, it’s not even close.
Just so that we all have a basic platform, where do we start, and why is cold weather so difficult on the pipes in your house?
Oh yes, it’s super simple. Water expands when it freezes. This is why the ice cubes are floating in the glass. They take up a smaller area and rise to the top. Therefore, your pipeline is not really designed to expand and then contract. Some new modern pipelines such as PEX can better handle freezing. They will actually stretch, and then they have memories, and they return to their original size. But copper and CBVC as well as brass and galvanized pipes. It will freeze, it will stretch that pipe.
Now, you may not break the first time, but the next time it freezes, it will start at the point where it was stretched, and then stretch again. So, you know, the pipe may be frozen three or four times, and it may burst the last time, or it may burst the first time it explodes.
At what temperature is it difficult for houses, ordinary houses with modern pipes, to be affected by the cold outside?
Personally, if it freezes at 32 or 30 degrees at night, I will not drip. Your house will maintain enough heat, it will only freeze for a while, and then it will warm up again. Dripping is a good practice, but I found from my business that just looking at the call volume, when things really start to break, when you are not free from the freezing during the day, it will drop to your 20s and stay overnight. . This is when we started to receive a large number of broken pipe calls.
correct. So, for those of us who might unfreeze and trip over the leak, besides calling you, what is our first action?
I think everyone who owns a house in Austin should know how to turn off the water supply to the house. Even if you didn’t take the initiative to leak, now you have to figure out how you will close your house. Then when it happens, you are ready, you will not try to complete it in complete panic.
With our call volume, we conducted a lot of video calls and drills, and helped people get through these situations. But we can’t even answer the phone, there are too many calls. It’s hard to get help now. So you kind of rely on yourself. So you really want to know how to turn off your water.
Yes, the most common is on the left or right side of your lot. There is also a huge round cast iron cover, which is the city meter. The valve that closes it should be about 12 inches in a small round box or pipe, usually with a green lid or a small cast iron lid. That should be closing the valve of your house.
If it is in good condition, no tools are needed. You should be able to lift the lid, grab the valve, turn it, and you close it. Over time… the lid disappeared, and then the dirt entered the box, it was eventually covered with grass, and the homeowner couldn’t find it in a panic.
The city always keeps their water meter box open because they are always checking your water meter. If you want to use their shutdown function, then you will need a tool, which is possible in an emergency. We should not use that valve as a switch in your house. That is the property of the city. But some pliers or crescent wrenches. This is a square head valve, you can tighten it with pliers or a wrench. I think this is a 90-degree shutdown that can completely shut off the water in your home.
How did you respond? How about family and employees? I mean, everyone is in the same boat.
I will tell the truth. The pressure is huge. I mean, we are sad. I mean, we see one call after another, read notes and talk to these customers. Their lives are basically destroyed, you know, we really can’t get close to them. So yes, there are many things to do. Then the CSR team received the call. So a lot. We hope that this situation will be thawed, the roads will be safer, and we will be able to take action faster to let people solve the problem.
Post time: Jun-17-2021
