CLEVELAND – These bitterly cold temperatures can be brutal, causing havoc in your home and how you get around. Kathy Spilar of Euclid found out first thing Sunday morning what the frigid weather can do. “I went to turn the water on to make some coffee and there was no water. There was nothing, not even a trickle,” she said.
The problem was frozen pipes. That is something John Langer with H Jacks Plumbing & Heating finds can happen a lot with sub-zero temperatures. “There was a pretty good draft coming through a certain area of the basement. And, that along with the bitter temperature caused a freeze in their water line coming into the house,” Langer said.
Luckily, the pipe was only frozen and didn’t burst. Langer used a hot box to thaw out the pipes. “One part of the hot box is hooked up to running water somewhere. The second part of the hot box is hooked up to the frozen pipe and that creates a current going through the line.” Langer said that is a very safe and efficient way to thaw out a frozen water line.
“Just because you have a warm house, that doesn’t mean you can’t get a frozen pipeline. So, lesson learned,” Spilar added.
Not only were people having problems with pipes freezing in their homes, but this cold weather was causing problems for their cars, too. Solomon Alexander of Cleveland got up Sunday morning to find there wasn’t any heat coming out of his car. “It was cold air– cold, cold, cold air,” he said. He is hopeful some antifreeze in the radiator will work. “I filled it up with antifreeze. It was low. So, I should have heat now,” he added.
Damon Malone of Cleveland couldn’t even get his car to start. He fell victim to another common cold weather problem — a dead battery. “From my understanding about batteries, they tend to freeze up on the inside. They do have like water and acid, like liquid. So, it tends to freeze up. And today being so cold and overnight, it’s frozen,” he said.
On the bright side, we are more than halfway through winter and spring is just around the corner.
