Technicians Expect More Work When Temperatures Plummet

With our low temperature hovering in the single digits, area plumbing and heating repair workers are overrun with calls.

Companies say cold days remind people to get things checked out - pipes or furnace filters - but sometimes people wake up shivering with no heat or head to the sink to find things aren't flowing as usual.

When it gets this cold, the work heats up for crews who fix broken pipes and sluggish furnaces; it's something they expect every year when the temperatures plummet.

“The phones were busy, obviously with a lot of frozen pipes," said Mullin Plumbing CEO, Robert Morris.

Roughly 25 percent of the calls Mullin Plumbing is getting right now are for frozen pipes.

They said when colder weather is in the forecast, they start getting ready.

“We try to make preparations the night before and make sure we've got all our equipment ready, and make sure all of our trucks are ready to go, and get the guys here and get them started early because we know it's going to be a long day," Morris said.

It's long day for Heating and Cooling companies too.

Long-time technician Dil Brandow was booked up, changing filters and fixing problems.

The company he works for is also seeing an increase in calls thanks to the bitter cold, and says it's not uncommon for people to neglect their annual maintenance.

"This is pretty much what a dirty filter looks like after about three months of use and that's pretty typical, pretty standard," Brandow said. "This is a filter that has been left in the system way too long, it's probably been in there for a year based on the looks of it. You can't see any light through it and it's just plugged beyond belief. This creates such a restriction on your system that you won't have any air flow."

No air flow means little or no heat and, often, when it comes to heaters, people don't realize there's any problem until they need it most.

The best tips to prevent from waking up in the cold or to a burst pipe is to keep up with maintenance; that means changing the filter in your heater regularly and getting a checkup once a year,

It's also smart to watch the weather.

When a cold front is headed our way you should wrap exposed pipes, insulate crawl spaces and leave faucets dripping.