Brian Simmons of Frasier’s Plumbing, Heating & Cooling in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, encounters working conditions in the winter that his southern counterparts don’t typically have to worry about. Cold, yes. But in recent weeks Simmons and his fellow northern plumbers have been experiencing cold on another level.
“You can bundle up with multiple layers, but you can only handle it for so long and then you have to get back into your truck or a building to warm yourself up,” Simmons says. “I don’t think you can dress warm enough for 40 or 50 below. In some situations, like when we have to use the hot-water jetter, at least we’re getting some heat on our hands from that line, which helps to keep us out there longer because it’s not like we can stop and turn it off. We have to stay out there until the job is done.”
Working in such temps is one thing, but the severely cold weather brings a host of problems that can keep plumbers like Simmons busy around the clock. Simmons says one of the most common problems Frasier’s has been encountering of late is entire homes freezing following a heating system failure.
“It will be the second property for most of our customers up here and they don’t have a monitoring system,” he says. “The boiler or furnace goes out and the home freezes up. What we’re finding is there are a lot of homes where a friend who lives down the road may check on the house once a week, but given the cold temperatures we’ve had, it only takes one day to freeze up a home.”
Addressing a problem that severe takes some time. Simmons says the first step is to bring in a temporary heating source. A dehumidification system is key as well.
“You need to remove the humidity from the home that’s created by bringing that temperature back up so there isn’t a problem with mold in the future,” Simmons says.
After that, the original heating source can be restored, and then the damage to the plumbing can be evaluated.
“What we see quite often is waterlines that have pulled apart because when water freezes inside a pipe it creates 2,000 pounds of pressure and either bursts or pulls solder joints apart,” Simmons says. “We check the visible aspects of what is there and then we hook up an air compressor so we won’t cause any more property damage by activating the water. The air test leads us to the next break until we can get them all repaired. Then we’ll leave the air test on it for about 24 hours to make sure we don’t lose any pressure.”
The folks of International Falls, Minnesota, dubbed “the Icebox of the Nation,” are prepared for extreme cold. Still, the crew at Corrin’s Plumbing & Heating has been dealing with freeze-ups.
“We have a house right now, a summer home, that’s completely frozen up,” says Jerry Kostiuk. “We have to change out the water heater, the toilet, faucets — everything broke. But it’s impossible to do the work in this kind of situation. We’re just waiting until it warms up a bit. We’ll put in temporary heat and then have at it.”
That’s just the most severe recent case for Corrin’s Plumbing. What has been the more chronic problem, Kostiuk says, is frozen lines that need to be thawed. International Falls hasn’t had enough snow cover this year to provide any insulation for underground pipes.
“We haven’t had as much snow, but it’s been cold so we’re getting people frozen up who don’t normally freeze up,” Kostiuk says. “We use a steamer to dethaw the lines.”
Thawing frozen lines has also been keeping the crew at J-Goods Plumbing and Heating in Marquette, Michigan, busy.
“Obviously the furnaces are stressed a little bit more, so they’re breaking, but it’s been mostly frozen pipes and frozen sewers for us,” says owner Jon Gooding. “For the sewers we use a Mustang hot-water jetter. For the frozen pipes in a home we either use a thawing machine or heat. In some cases, they’re so badly busted we just replace them.”
Whatever the problem may be, the severe cold produces enough of them to keep the entire nine-person staff of J-Goods Plumbing busy constantly. Gooding says it’s been all hands on deck, day and night.
“After hours we all pitch in when it’s bad like this so at least all of us get somewhat of a break,” he says. “Typically, we have one guy on call in the evenings, but in these extreme temperatures, we’re all on call.”
