As Alberta’s winter weather warms, watch out for frozen and burst pipes

As Alberta’s weather starts to warm up from crippling cold, home and business owners are being warned to look out for frozen and burst pipes to avoid damages worth thousands of dollars.

The owner of a Calgary heating and plumbing company says right now it’s the furnaces and next it’s going to be the pipes.                                      

“Today I’ll have 100 calls for furnaces and maybe two frozen pipes. When you hear about one, it’s terrible. It’s the whole house is you know, it’s a catastrophe, right?” said Pete Archdekin, owner of Pete the Plumber. “But that’s one out of 100 houses that had no heat that we fixed. Be aware of it, you’re a homeowner you got to be aware, go around flush toilets. Turn on the showers, go to the basement bathroom, turn on the laundry.”

The City of Calgary Water Service says it’s experienced eight water main breaks over the past week.

In three cases, water service has been restored. For all others — including Montgomery, Rundle, Southview, Charleswood and Capitol Hill, the cause of the leak is currently under investigation or repairs are underway.

The city says under normal circumstances, water main breaks are repaired, water is back on within 48 hours and is updated on the city website.

But, in other cases it maybe delayed due to factors including locating the break and its size, the pipes and the current weather conditions.

As Archdekin says, homeowners with older homes and copper pipes should be on red alert.

“You just got to get ready. If it’s frozen, there’s a great chance of bursting,” he said. “Copper pipes are the worst — they’re the best pipe, but they’re the worst for freezing because they’ll expand, split, and stay frozen until a melt and then boom, you got a hole.

“The plastic pipes, the white pex pipes, they will have a bit of expansion, so they can freeze and melt and freeze and melt and not as bad,” Archdekin explained.

He says if you suspect you have frozen pipes, the best plan of action is using heaters around them for the next few days to slowly thaw them, but only under personal supervision so you know if there is cracked pipe and a leak.

“Get heaters, call technician, do whatever you have to do, keep the house as warm as you can,” Archdekin said.