BURSTING PIPES
AND DAMAGED HEATING SYSTEMS: THE RESULT OF THE DEEP FREEZE
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Bad breaks : Stranded motorists, burst pipes and fried
furnaces
Northboro firefighters use large squeegees to clean up
water from the hallway floors of Algonquin Regional High School in Northboro
after a fire sprinkler pipe burst during Thursday's bitter cold. (T&G
Staff/PAUL KAPTEYN)
Worcester firefighters exit Marie Hills' house on
Stafford Street on Thursday. They helped her shut off the main water supply
after a pipe supplying the outdoor faucet burst inside a garage wall. (T&G
Staff/PAUL KAPTEYN) Enlarge photo
With the bitter cold that settled into the area this
week, things are breaking bad for motorists and homeowners alike.
AAA Southern New England provides roadside assistance
for motorists who are stranded by dead batteries or other problems. As the
mercury dips, the calls increase.
"Right now we're experiencing four times our call
volume for people looking for roadside assistance," said Mary Maguire, a
spokesman for AAA Southern New England. "Wait times are obviously a little
bit longer due to the fact that we have such a high volume."
Temperatures plunged to 10 below zero Wednesday night
and Thursday morning in some areas of Central Massachusetts, bringing a host of
problems.
"We have a huge influx of battery-related calls,
which means people are having trouble starting their cars or their batteries
are at the end of their lives," Ms. Maguire said. "Batteries
typically last three to four years, but the average is 36 months."
Cold weather was to blame for a pipe that burst Thursday
afternoon inside Algonquin Regional High School in Northboro.
Northboro Fire Capt. Robert P. Theve said a sprinkler
pipe burst in the girls room near the school auditorium, flooding water into
the bathroom, the hallways leading to the rotunda area of the school and the auditorium.
Capt. Theve said a significant amount of water poured
into the building before firefighters were able to shut down the system.
Ceiling tiles in the bathroom were damaged and there may be rug damage in the
auditorium. He said firefighters helped with the cleanup, sweeping water down
the hallways and out a door.
In Westboro, there was a call for a broken sprinkler
pipe in an industrial building, but Fire Capt. Bob Rand said the cold was not
to blame — it turned out a pipe had been hit by a forklift.
Capt. Rand said the Westboro Fire Department received a
call for leaking pipes in one home and expects more when the weather warms. He
said homes that are recently constructed or have not gone through a
full-fledged winter yet tend to develop problems in deep cold.
"It's a problem of the cold getting deep into
people's homes and freezing pipes. When it gets warm the pipes thaw out and
start to leak," he said.
Capt. Rand said that when pipes freeze and do not burst,
they stay frozen. Leaks caused by the freezing are not detected until the pipe
thaws.
Homeowners also awoke Thursday to furnace problems.
Heating and plumbing companies throughout the region
were kept busy with weather-related water pipe breaks or broken furnaces.
In Worcester, Marie Hills said she was alerted to a
water break in her home on Stafford Street by the sound of running water.
"I was upstairs in my home and I heard a noise as
if someone had turned on all the water faucets," she said.
Knowing she was not washing clothes or otherwise using
water in the house, she set out to investigate. She was traced the noise to the
garage and found water coming from a wall between the house and the garage. She
said she opened the garage door to let the water run down the driveway.
Unsure if the water was affecting anything electrical,
she contacted the Worcester Fire Department.
Firefighters shut down the water system and recommended
she have a plumber come in, take out a section of the wall and replace the
pipe.
Ms. Hills said she was fortunate. Firefighters got there
before the water backed up into the house and caused more damage.
Weaknesses in furnaces tend to reveal themselves during
extreme cold, when the furnaces are working overtime.
Tricia Pistone of Fitchburg said she and her husband,
Michael, woke around midnight Wednesday to a loud banging sound. She said her
husband went to investigate.
"We weren't sure what was going on," she said.
What he found was their furnace had broken down. The
temperature outside at the time was 2 below zero, and with the furnace down,
temperatures were dropping in the house.
To help the situation, they heated the living room with
a gas fireplace and contacted Rollstone Fuel Co. to make the repairs.
Two chilly hours later, the bearings in the furnace had
been replaced, and the Pistones were back in business. Mrs. Pistone said the
temperature in the house was down to the 50s by the time the repairs were made.
She said they had insulating done in their home last
year through the Mass Save energy efficiency program, which may have saved them
from further cold.