NEW ORLEANS — Pete Graffeo, owner of Pete's Plumbing and Heating says he received 24 calls Wednesday morning from people saying their pipes froze. He says he got four calls from people with burst pipes.
Graffeo said, "The calls we were getting this morning were mostly people who turned their hot water faucets on and nothing came out."'
He says those who wrapped their pipes can leave that insulation on, so the pipes are protected if we get another cold spell. He says burst pipes can cost anything from a couple of hundreds of dollars to thousands.
"A lot of people will tend to leave the cold water run but they forget about the hot water, your hot water side is just as susceptible as your cold is."
He said his suggestion for next time, "It's better to run the hot side, not the cold side, because you'll get water movement through both sides by running the hot because the hot feeds your hot water heater, and so it's going to cause the water to move."
To save money when running the hot water, he said, "If you have a gas heater you are probably better off by turning the pilot down to low, don't turn it off, turn it low."
According to Jefferson Parish, four water lines broke during the arctic blast, one of the breaks was on Hyacinth Street in Metairie.
Mark Drewes, Director of Jefferson Parish Public Works said the parish anticipated more breaks, telling WWL Louisiana, "All those six-inch lines which are small main lines so very fortunately we didn't have any transmission lines, 12-inch, 24-inch greater lines that broke."
He went on to say, that the cold, combined with people running water to prevent pipes from bursting put a lot of pressure on the system.
"We'll shut those valves off right away and get it fixed because the last thing we want is to have multiple breaks and we can't fight a fire because our pressure gets well below 40 psi or worst case scenario we have to do a boil water advisory cause our pressure got down to 20 psi," Drewes explained.