Take precautions to keep pipes from freezing

GRANGER, Ind. -- If you don't take the proper precautions, your water pipes could freeze, then break. Local plumbers say they've received about a call a day about frozen pipes.


Plumber Keith Keppler had to dig five feet deep Friday to fix a frozen pipe.


"In the extreme cold temperatures, the water lines will freeze and a lot of times when they freeze they will split and break and that's what we are repairing today, a split in the line," said Keppler.



When water freezes, it expands. When it freezes inside a water line - the line will break.



"We have a frost depth of 48-inches in Saint Joseph County Indiana but in the extreme cold it does happen to where they will freeze. We will do at least one frozen line a day," said Keppler. "Most of them will start freezing around twenty degrees, so when you get down as low as we are now you have got a lot more frozen lines you will have to be dealing with."



Plumbers recommend that when it gets this cold, to leave the water going just enough to keep the water flowing through the pipes.



"Moving water can't freeze, if you keep that moving in there it will keep that line open," said Keppler.

 

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