AUBURN - Steve Bianco spent his Thursday morning lying on the kitchen floor of a stranger's home on North Seward, wedged into a nook normally meant for a lazy Susan.
Steve Bianco, owner of Bianco Plumbing and Heating in Auburn, removes pipe insulation from a frozen water pipe which had burst. Devon DelloStritto / The Citizen
Bianco, owner of Bianco Plumbing and Heating, finds himself in these situations a lot these days.
The season for frozen and bursting pipes is here, and plumbers in the area are reporting an onslaught of telephone calls from homeowners who have water flowing from places it shouldn't be.
When Bianco arrived at his Wall Street shop Monday morning, he found 28 messages from concerned individuals on his answering machine. Thirty-five job tickets were pinned to a corkboard on a wall and 31 were scattered across his desk. His three two-man crews were out trying to respond to commercial and residential requests for help across the city.
"I have jobs coming out of my ears," he said. "In fact, we have so many that I'm referring jobs to the competition. I don't ever remember it being this crazy. The consistent cold temperatures are really causing problems."
Cold temperatures freeze stagnant water in pipes, and when water freezes, it expands. Thin copper pipes can't handle the stress of the expanding mass and the result is ruptured metal, followed by spurting water. Bianco said hot water pipes are usually the first to freeze.
Most of the pipes he and his crews have been fixing have been exposed to a cold draft or have been too close to an outside wall, the result of faulty construction.
"We're seeing a lot of pipes where they shouldn't be," Bianco said. "They're exposed to an outer wall, so no matter how much insulation they have, they're still going to freeze."
"But we are seeing some pipes freeze that have been in homes for more than 100 years and have never froze before. It's the extreme cold."
If residents turn on a faucet and no water comes out, Bianco said, they should leave the faucet on, shut off the main water valve and call a plumber. Residents should never try and thaw a pipe themselves. If a pipe has burst and water is causing severe damage, or is accumulating in a particular area, Auburn fire chief Michael Quill said the fire department can help.
"But only in the most severe situation or if residents can't get in touch with a plumber," Quill said.
Quill said since the new year, the department has received a handful of calls for bursting pipes. Bianco said he's also been receiving a lot of calls for failing furnaces, which have been working overtime with temperatures hovering near 0 for the past few weeks.
N. Stephen Ruchman, president of the Professional Insurance Agents of New York state, said insurance agents across the state have been busy this year with both residential and commercial claims for water damage.
"It's an extremely bad year," he said.
Ruchman said most homeowners insurance covers damage (to structure, rugs and furniture) resulting from frozen pipes.
"But there is no coverage for frozen pipe damage to an unoccupied home or business unless the heat is maintained and the pipes have been drained," he said.
In the last 10 years, insurance companies have paid out $4 billion in claims due to damage caused by frozen pipes. Insurance, though, won't pay for the costs associated with repairing pipes, Ruchman said.
Bianco said repairing pipes can often be downright miserable. Especially when it deals with a frozen septic pipe. "It's cold. You're soaking wet most of the time. You have to roll around in insulation. You have a heater running. It's just terrible," he said.
Many times, Bianco said, a job that seems to be routine at first can turn into an all-day affair. Pipes can be hard to reach, and often require the surrounding walls and fixtures to be sawed off.
Last week, Bianco walked into a house where the upstairs pipes had burst. Water was flowing from the ceiling "like a rain forest."
On Monday night, John Trowse noticed that water wasn't running in the upstairs bathroom in his 1930s North Seward Avenue home. He turned on the hot water, a "no-no" in this situation, and the pipe burst. It was the same pipe that burst last year.
"I've been showering at the Y," Trowse said.
On Thursday morning, Bianco crawled into Trowse's nook, pulled out the insulation, sawed away part of the wall, then the broken piece of pipe, and welded a new piece of pipe to the system. Once that was finished, it was on to another pipe that was frozen in the Trowse household.
And after that, another frozen pipe somewhere in the city.
Staff writer Benning W. De La Mater can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 237 or ben.delamater@lee.net
The season for frozen and bursting pipes is here, and plumbers in the area are reporting an onslaught of telephone calls from homeowners who have water flowing from places it shouldn't be.
When Bianco arrived at his Wall Street shop Monday morning, he found 28 messages from concerned individuals on his answering machine. Thirty-five job tickets were pinned to a corkboard on a wall and 31 were scattered across his desk. His three two-man crews were out trying to respond to commercial and residential requests for help across the city.
"I have jobs coming out of my ears," he said. "In fact, we have so many that I'm referring jobs to the competition. I don't ever remember it being this crazy. The consistent cold temperatures are really causing problems."
Cold temperatures freeze stagnant water in pipes, and when water freezes, it expands. Thin copper pipes can't handle the stress of the expanding mass and the result is ruptured metal, followed by spurting water. Bianco said hot water pipes are usually the first to freeze.
Most of the pipes he and his crews have been fixing have been exposed to a cold draft or have been too close to an outside wall, the result of faulty construction.
"We're seeing a lot of pipes where they shouldn't be," Bianco said. "They're exposed to an outer wall, so no matter how much insulation they have, they're still going to freeze."
"But we are seeing some pipes freeze that have been in homes for more than 100 years and have never froze before. It's the extreme cold."
If residents turn on a faucet and no water comes out, Bianco said, they should leave the faucet on, shut off the main water valve and call a plumber. Residents should never try and thaw a pipe themselves. If a pipe has burst and water is causing severe damage, or is accumulating in a particular area, Auburn fire chief Michael Quill said the fire department can help.
"But only in the most severe situation or if residents can't get in touch with a plumber," Quill said.
Quill said since the new year, the department has received a handful of calls for bursting pipes. Bianco said he's also been receiving a lot of calls for failing furnaces, which have been working overtime with temperatures hovering near 0 for the past few weeks.
N. Stephen Ruchman, president of the Professional Insurance Agents of New York state, said insurance agents across the state have been busy this year with both residential and commercial claims for water damage.
"It's an extremely bad year," he said.
Ruchman said most homeowners insurance covers damage (to structure, rugs and furniture) resulting from frozen pipes.
"But there is no coverage for frozen pipe damage to an unoccupied home or business unless the heat is maintained and the pipes have been drained," he said.
In the last 10 years, insurance companies have paid out $4 billion in claims due to damage caused by frozen pipes. Insurance, though, won't pay for the costs associated with repairing pipes, Ruchman said.
Bianco said repairing pipes can often be downright miserable. Especially when it deals with a frozen septic pipe. "It's cold. You're soaking wet most of the time. You have to roll around in insulation. You have a heater running. It's just terrible," he said.
Many times, Bianco said, a job that seems to be routine at first can turn into an all-day affair. Pipes can be hard to reach, and often require the surrounding walls and fixtures to be sawed off.
Last week, Bianco walked into a house where the upstairs pipes had burst. Water was flowing from the ceiling "like a rain forest."
On Monday night, John Trowse noticed that water wasn't running in the upstairs bathroom in his 1930s North Seward Avenue home. He turned on the hot water, a "no-no" in this situation, and the pipe burst. It was the same pipe that burst last year.
"I've been showering at the Y," Trowse said.
On Thursday morning, Bianco crawled into Trowse's nook, pulled out the insulation, sawed away part of the wall, then the broken piece of pipe, and welded a new piece of pipe to the system. Once that was finished, it was on to another pipe that was frozen in the Trowse household.
And after that, another frozen pipe somewhere in the city.
Staff writer Benning W. De La Mater can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 237 or ben.delamater@lee.net
The Citizens' Say
There are No comments posted.