Massachusetts plumbers flooded with calls days after record cold causes pipes to burst
BOSTON – Plumber Travis Jonasson has spent the last 48 hours or so jumping from soggy house to soggy house as his phone buzzes away on his belt with calls he doesn't really have time to answer.
"It's been crazy," said his father Carl, who runs the family plumbing business. "I've probably fielded 600 calls and there's only so much we can do in a day."
WBZ-TV caught up with the pair cutting into walls and ceilings at a house in Needham, one of many where Mother Nature has cracked pipes since Saturday.
That's when temperatures sank well below zero with even worse wind chills, only to abruptly climb to almost 50 degrees on Sunday.
It's a perfect formula for disaster because when ice forms inside a pipe and then thaws quickly. The expanding ice bursts pipes by the hundreds, triggering a watery mess.
Not far away, was Matt Eisenberg desperately trying to dry out his water-logged basement where the temperature swing busted the copper pipe at the bottom of his bulkhead stairs and soaked everything.
He and his wife were away for the weekend, and Eisenberg recalls his wife joking about what they might find upon their return.
"On the way home," Eisenberg said. "My wife turned to me and said 'You don't think we'll find any burst pipes, do you?' And I said 'No that couldn't happen. I left the heat on high and I know all the right things to do.'"
Maybe not. Fortunately, he knows a guy.
"We prioritize," plumber Carl Jonasson said. "If you've been a customer with us for 15 or 20 years, then we're going to you first."
In Weymouth, Keira Driscoll woke up before dawn Sunday morning with water cascading from the ceiling in the foyer of her condo.
The condo's maintenance man shut down the water, but Keira quickly found frustration trying to pin down a plumber.
At least 19 other residents in her complex had the same problem and she was told a plumber might be able to come -- next Tuesday.
"There's a lot of problems and a lot of suffering going on," she told us. "And as much as you want your things done first everybody's in the same position right now. So you just have to be patient."
During the next sub-zero snap, drip those faucets, open cabinets to expose problem pipes, and crank up the heat.
"Better to pay the gas company a little extra for the fuel bill," Carl Jonasson said. "As opposed to paying for all this damage, and the plumber's overtime."
For now, though, shut off your water and prepare to wait. And don't be surprised if it takes a plumber a couple of days to return your call.
To add insult to injury, 70-year-old Carl Jonasson said a worsening plumber shortage isn't helping.
He said his generation of plumbers is fast approaching retirement and there aren't enough youngsters taking up the trade to fill the void.