Over at Sam Mechanical, we are all very aware this time of year of the havoc that cold weather can wreak on so many homes throughout the New York area. With snowstorms and freezing temps all across the board, this means big trouble for a lot of homeowners and the need for emergency plumbing services. What exactly are we talking about? Bursting pipes my friends, bursting pipes.
So what happens to cause a pipe to burst? Well, if a temperature inside a house gets below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0° Celsius) it's likely that the water supply pipes and the drain traps will freeze. When water freezes, it expands 9 percent, and if there is no room for expansion it could cause the pipe to develop a crack. When the ice thaws the pipe will leak, and in the supply system this leak could occur anywhere.
Now, not all houses will suffer from this problem so don’t go worrying just yet that this will happen to you. A properly-insulated house, built to current building codes will most likely never experience this problem under normal conditions. So long as the heating system runs properly, the electricity supply stays on, and the furnace fuel supply never runs out, you should probably never develop a crack in your pipes. But sometimes it does happen. And although fixing a burst pipe can be expensive, the damage from uncontrolled water leakage can easily reach into the thousands of dollars. So it’s best when this happens to jump on it right away. At Sam Mechanical we offer emergency plumbing services to help you fix these problems pronto.
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