North Texas plumbers inundated with busted pipe calls after below-freezing temperatures
Plumbers are on the go after more than two days of below-freezing temperatures in North Texas. Water expands as it turns into ice, which puts more pressure on pipes. Now homeowners are starting to notice the damage as the ground begins to thaw out.
Homeowner Matt Pearson had an unwelcome surprise Thursday inside his Fort Worth home.
"My wife gets home around 5 and says, 'There's a problem, come downstairs.' There's two inches of water in our entryway and dining room!" Pearson said.
The couple jumped into action, trying to avoid damage to their home.
"We used a lot of pool towels repurposed for drying flooring and researched the internet as to what my next step should be," Pearson said.
Pearson called Mother Modern Plumbing. Plumbers cut into his wall and quickly found the problem.
"It is broken right where the outside faucet connects to the pipe in the wall," plumber Steven Smith said.
The plumbers said the pipe froze and burst inside the wall. They installed a new frost-proof pipe that is less likely to break.
Smith said homeowners can look out for two signs they may have a burst pipe. The first sign is leaking water, and the second sign is having no water at all.
"If you don't have water, anywhere or to a certain fixture, that means something is definitely frozen. How frozen it is and where it froze kind of determines whether or not the pipe is broken, but even if it's frozen and the pipe is broken, you won't know until it thaws out," Smith said.
Mother Modern Plumbing has plumbers on call 24/7 through the weekend, as they anticipate a surge of burst pipe calls.
"We preordered stock for fixing these kinds of things because the last time it happened, everybody ran out everywhere," Smith said.
Pearson remains positive as plumbers make the repairs.
"We still got heat. We still got food. We still got a car, so we're good to go. We'll be fine. We got friends and family we can stay with if we need to. We don't have water at this point. That's a new task. Camping in your own house," Pearson said.
CBS News Texas called about two dozen plumbers in the DFW Metroplex. All plumbing companies said they had busted pipe calls on Friday.
