Frozen pipes are still causing headaches, and expensive messes for home owners…the situation is also keeping plumbers and insurance agents busy.
Insurance agent Lance Lesueur says he’s working on about 40 water damage claims…and he expects more.
“We’ve had full houses going completely, sheet rock, ceilings, everything going down to the bottom of the house – which would be a total loss, almost like a fire loss.”
Erik Pedersen of Fairway Plumbing says there have been two busy periods.
The first came with the first blast of cold weather, thawing broken pipes…
“And then as the Sun warms up, the ones we couldn’t get to thaw out to prevent the breaks, they break on their own, and then we just scramble to repair broken pipes.”
A broken pipe at this Klamath Falls Dairy Queen caused so much damage, the owners have chosen to do a total remodel.
Lance Lesueur says most home owner policies do cover damage from broken pipes, with one caveat…
“And that caveat is, if efforts have been made to protect, or in other words, if you’ve left the heat on in your house.”
And Erik Pedersen is just trying to keep up…
“We try to get as many as we can done, but as many as we get done, the next day it just grows.”
Pedersen says unprotected outdoor spigots are the most common cause for frozen pipe problems.
Pedersen says at 2 dollar insulation cover can help to prevent freezing and breaks later on.
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