KILLEEN, Texas — With the winter weather bringing freezing temperatures, your home or business could be in danger of severe damage if your water pipes freeze and burst.
Most of us don’t think about how much damage water can do to our homes until it’s too late and freezing. Temperatures Texans will see later this week can make that nightmare a reality.
”A lot of drywall, a lot of flooring, subflooring underneath houses. The walls will expand and we have a lot of mildew extraction from water damage.” said Robert Wieland, general contractor and owner of Wieland Construction.
Plumbers in Bell County, say it’s not just your home you need to worry about.
”We’ve seen more commercial buildings get affected this past year. Real estate offices, lawyers, doctor’s offices, medical facilities, because they didn’t think about their business, they thought about their home,” said Doni Engel, owner of Pro-Tech Plumbing in Killeen.
The cost of repairs can be just as catastrophic as the damage itself.
”Plumbing repair, the cost could be from about 500 to 2,000 dollars and then you have to think about what the water caused damage to, such as flooring. Flooring can run up to 5,000 to 10,000 dollars,” said Wieland.
The good news is, there are steps that you can take right now, to avoid the tragic bursting of frozen water pipes and it costs much less than repairs.
”Covering outside fossettes, 5 bucks. If you don’t have 5 bucks, a sock and a plastic bag. Just anything to keep the wind chill from hitting that outside fossette, causing it to create a break inside your wall, flooding your house, and now we have bigger problems.” said Engel.
You can also allow your sinks inside to have a steady drip to keep water flowing or shut the water to your home or business off before you have to call a plumber.
If you wait until the unthinkable happens, there might not be a plumber available to help you.
”We only actually have so many plumbers in this town and if we get into a bad freeze and you don’t protect yourself, you could be without water for days,” said Engel.
The message is simple, take steps to protect your pipes from freezing before the winter weather hits Central Texas this week.
