Longview Water Damage / Burst and frozen pipes
Burst pipe water damage in Longview
A hard freeze only comes through Longview every few years, so a lot of the plumbing here was never laid out with one in mind. The pipes that split are usually in the attic, an outside wall, or the garage, and the water tends to show up after the thaw.
What February 2021 showed us
On the morning of February 16, 2021, the National Weather Service recorded minus 5 degrees in Longview. That is the coldest reading the city has on record. The old mark, minus 4, had stood since January 1930.
Local plumbers told the News-Journal that day that nearly all their calls were frozen pipes, and that the real trouble would start when things warmed up. That is how it went. A frozen pipe doesn't leak while it is frozen. The ice splits it, the split holds, and then it lets go when the ice turns back to water. A lot of people found their leaks while they were staying with family or living out of one warm room.
A normal winter here is easy on pipes. The East Texas Regional Airport averages about 35 nights a year at or below freezing, but less than one day a year that stays below freezing from morning to night. Houses are built and insulated for cold that breaks by noon. A freeze that lasts three days is what catches them out.
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Open the cost calculatorWhere pipes split in Longview houses
- The attic. A slab house has nowhere to run a supply line except up through the attic or inside the walls. When an attic line splits, the water comes down through the ceiling and soaks the insulation on its way.
- Outside walls. A kitchen sink on an outside wall, or the line feeding a hose bib, sits right against the cold. The cabinet under the sink is often the first place water shows.
- The garage. Water heaters and washer lines in an unheated garage freeze before anything inside the house does.
- The crawlspace. Older pier-and-beam houses have pipes hanging in the open under the floor, where wind gets at them from every side.
After the thaw, look for these
Go through the house once the temperature is back above freezing, even if everything seems fine. Look for a brown ring or a sag in a ceiling, water at the bottom of a wall or under the baseboard, and a warm or soft spot in a floor near the water heater. Listen for hissing inside a wall.
The water meter is the best test. Turn off every faucet and appliance in the house and watch the dial. If it still moves, water is going somewhere you can't see.
How the crew dries it out
An attic break is the messiest kind. Wet blown insulation holds water against the ceiling drywall and won't dry where it lies, so it usually comes out. A ceiling that is sagging gets drained on purpose before it falls on its own. Keep everyone out from under it until then.
In the walls, the crew pulls baseboards and meters the drywall and the bottom plate. Drywall gets cut where the readings say it is wet. On a slab, carpet pad and laminate flooring are the usual losses, because the water gets under them and has nowhere to go. Tile on a slab can often stay. The air movers and dehumidifiers stay until the readings say dry.
Not every burst is a freeze
Most of the year, the pipe that lets go is a braided supply line under a sink or toilet, a washing machine hose, or a water heater tank that finally rusted through. Those are clean water too, and they get handled the same way. The difference is that nobody is watching for them, so they often run longer before anyone notices.
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Questions
Should I turn the water back on to find the leak?
Only for a minute, with someone standing at the valve ready to close it again. A plumber can find the break without flooding the house a second time.
Does homeowners insurance cover a pipe that froze?
Often, when the break was sudden. Many policies limit freeze damage when a house was left without heat and the water was left on. Read your policy or call your agent.
How long does the drying take?
It depends on where the water went. A clean leak caught early in one room dries a lot faster than water that sat in the attic insulation or got under tile. The crew pulls the equipment when the meters say the walls and floors are dry.