Lexington plumber talks burst pipes, prevention and awareness

LEXINTON, Ky (WTVQ) — After the frigid temperatures over the weekend and in the latter part of last week, many are now dealing with the aftermath.
From frozen pipes to pipes that have burst, plumbers have been busy helping people in Lexington.

“It’s just so cold that it doesn’t won’t thaw out for a while. And then, like today, even while I’ve been here in the past hour, I’ve already had two more phone calls. So it’s I’m just trying to schedule things as much as I can. Because right now once they thaw out, they’ve, it’s the, the burst of the pipe,” said Patrick Kelley, the owner of Kelley Plumbing.

You’ve heard it before, many recommending you insulate your pipes or in some cases, leave the faucets dripping so the pipes won’t freeze up. But for one homeowner, that just wasn’t possible, so they ended up calling Kelley.

“It was a very small burst in the pipe, it was the cold line to the toilet, but it was over-top the garage. So it’s not really heated space, and even though copper is a superior material for waterlines. In a situation like this, it probably should have been impex, something that will expand but not burst,” added Kelley.

He also spoke on the case at the homeowner’s residence, “in this case, there is no way to keep this dripping because it was a toilet, you can actually screw the float fluid master usually has ability to screw those tops up a little bit. And it’ll, it’ll flow over time. But in this case, it was like very difficult for him to have any flowing water,”

Kelley says the homeowner was away when the pipe burst, but luckily, Kelley and team were able to help take care of the problem.

“This was actually very, very quick, very easy, we found it very quickly. And were able to take care of it with with just a few minutes of soldering some copper,” added Kelley.

He says most of the worst scenarios tend to happen when people are out of town.

“When you have three or four feet of water in a basement because people have gone away for a couple of days, and it’s a burst pipe and it’s like a, it’s just, you’re,  it’s like you’re swimming to get things fixed,” he said.

Kelley also gave some tips in case you do find yourself with frozen pipes.

“Blow dryer is fine to use, you know, it’s, any way you can get heat source to the pipe is best, you don’t really want to use a torch or anything like that,” also said Kelley.

Kelley says to make sure the plumber you hire is licensed and insured.
He adds that you can call the state plumbing board and ask for credentials, the plumber should be carrying their state id.