Winter Woes from Frozen and Burst Pipes? Middletown Homeowners Know that SERVPRO Repairs and Rebuilds, "Like it never even happened."

2/2/2020 (Permalink)

Did This Guy Freeze the Pipes Causing Them to Burst in Your Middletown Home or Business? SERVPRO Can Make It, "Like it never even happened."

Frozen Pipes in Middletown Homes and Businesses Can Lead to Burst Pipes

The winter months can bring about some extreme temperature drops and cold snaps for Middletown homes and businesses. Without the appropriate precautionary measures, it can be challenging to avoid the disasters that can arise from extreme cold entirely. During a power outage or heating system failure, freezing pipes that burst can be among the more serious of these potential disasters.  When the cracked pipes thaw, it can cause immediate flooding inside the house. Even with the prompt response that you can expect from our SERVPRO emergency response, a pipe split can deposit hundreds, or even thousands, of gallons of water in the surrounding areas before you get the valve shut down.

Water cleanup for Middletown homes can present multiple obstacles after the event of a frozen pipe. One of the most considerable of these is identifying the full scope of the water present in your home after a pipe bursting. Frigid temperatures can find their way around inadequately insulated portions of plumbing and cause frozen pipes. As the liquid turns to a solid within copper and PEX pipe options, it expands with tremendous force, exerting pressure on the walls of the pipe. As the pressure builds, these frozen pipes can become burst pipes.

Immediate Concerns
The focus of any homeowner following a substantial water loss incident like this is both determining the extent of the present damage and working quickly to address the break in the plumbing. Our SERVPRO professionals can help in many aspects of mitigation and recovery, but structural concerns and the repair of your compromised plumbing lands in the competent hands of our in-house residential contractors certified through the State of Connecticut (#HIC.0652559.) From repairing joints of split, frozen pipe to replacing a small portion where burst pipes were a concern, this is one of the first restoration tasks as mitigation begins.

Emergency services for your home can include the removal of drywall and wood trim to gain immediate access to highly damaged portions of your property. In most cases, lengths of plumbing are not exposed and readily seen. Instead, they are routed in chases, within walls, above ceilings, and in subfloor cavities for unhindered pathways to various installed fixtures throughout the house. Burst pipes inside walls can allow a high volume of water to collect within this structural cavity, eventually saturating the drywall, framing, insulation, and other building materials, and then migrating on to other areas of the house. Often, this non-visible leakage can soak into and ruin drywall, framing, and electrical wiring.

Our contractors can remove even full panels of drywall when necessary to gain unrestricted access to damaged portions of frozen pipes or damaged plumbing for repair and drying. Freezing pipes can lead to both direct burst pipe portions, but also long weak points in hard PVC that might exist in homes that had plumbing repairs decades ago. Repairing damaged portions of the plumbing is also critical, as this can often meet the conditions necessary for the residents to remain in the house while recovery occurs.

Widespread Threats
Because pipes can burst and then thaw beneath the subfloor or in other structural cavities, frozen pipes can become ruptured pipes without realizing the immediate threat. Instead, this water damage spreads unnoticed throughout a broad area of the house and can lead to irreparable damage to finish materials like drywall, wood flooring, and carpet. Resolving these issues begins with an adequate understanding of the loss through the application of moisture detection devices like surface moisture sensors and meters, hygrometers, and thermal imagery.

The farther that the moisture and dampness spread from the initial break, often the greater the need for reconstruction and build-back. While we do have competent, certified contractors that can do more than manage controlled demolition and clear out debris, we also have highly trained and experienced restoration professionals. Rapid extraction and focused drying efforts can have a considerable mitigating impact when implemented soon after plumbing failures. By reducing the time the water has to migrate through the structure, and the length of time building materials remain wet, our skilled SERVPRO team can reduce the mess, cost, and time to restore a home to its preloss condition.

Still, another concern for your property after the rupture of frozen pipes is the possibility of microbial development in the days following the initial incident. If this burst pipe occurs in an area unnoticed by the occupants of the home or business, several days could pass before anyone discovers a problem. Mold growth can begin after 48 hours of damp conditions in wet organic matter exposed by the migrating water. Materials such as drywall, wood trim, framing, and flooring are all susceptible to damage from microorganisms until our SERVPRO remediators can address these problems as well.

Why Professional Restoration Is Wise
In many cases following frozen pipes that develop into burst pipes, you have little time to react in the stopping of the flow of water, removing standing water, and then drying out the water loss zone. The situation can quickly get out of control and demand the experience and advanced tools available to professional restorers like our SERVPRO team. Choosing the expertise of our technicians can mean a more significant recovery of complete belongings and construction materials.

Merely saying that We’re Faster To Any Size Disaster does not show you how committed the team is to help you through this time of turmoil and damage in your home or business. We have a centrally located facility for the Middletown and New Britain area so that we can arrive within our service region promptly at any time of the day or night. From the first notice of a water loss when you recognize frozen pipes have burst, we can often respond within minutes to provide you peace of mind in knowing that our certified Water Restoration Technicians (WRT) and Applied Structural Drying (ASD) personnel are on the way.

Our commitment to providing residential and commercial customers effective and efficient service begins with the high levels of training and education that our technicians receive. While most of our restorers have years of hands-on experience to contribute to their grasp of work needed in the field, continued coursework can grow and expand the knowledge of our team in the rapidly changing world of restoration and recovery. We follow the best practices of the IICRC--Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification.

The winter season can invite cold snaps into the basement, crawl space, and other vulnerable areas of your property where exposed copper and plastic plumbing are vulnerable. Our SERVPRO of Middletown / New Britain team can help to make a substantial water loss incident “Like it never even happened.” We have efficient extraction, drying, and build-back to help return your property to normal. Give us a call today at (860) 826-5169.