Plumbers Flooded With Pipes Bursting Calls

Plumbers have been flooded with calls. Pipes across the viewing area are starting to burst. Outdoor faucets have frozen solid, pipes burst inside homes and flooded bathrooms, soaked carpets and left many homeowners at their wits end.

"I had to thaw out the back flow too, a solid piece of ice and it was split right across there," plumber Dan Chechakos of Roto-Rooter explained at his first commercial repair of the day.

These temperatures plunging down to the single digits in some places wreaked havoc on outdoor pipes like this one.

A plumbing crew replaced these two inch PVC pipes at the Wal-Mart on Highway 153.

The PVC pipes were frozen solid they were on the inside hard ice all the way through. The outdoor pipes were not insulated. The Roto-Rooter crew tells us the insulated caps have been sold out for sometime. Heat wrapped tape would be the best solution. With the pipes frozen, water to the greenhouse section of Wal-Mart was without water.

And at this Red Bank area home, an outdoor tank-less water heater freezes. That's because the pipes were not heat tape wrapped or insulated. And that means no hot water at all for Dale Dameron and his family.

Plumber Tommy Reese of Reese Plumbing Company explained, "This is okay to sit outside in Florida and Southern California, Southern Arizona but in Chattanooga where we have temperatures in single digits, there is no amount of insulation that could protect the pipe from freezing, you've got to have some electric heat tape on it too."

    Plumbers expect most of the pipes to burst tomorrow when temperatures get above freezing. Those we spoke with say if you suspect your pipes are frozen, be very careful with using  heat directly on them with a hair dryer. The reason: moisture and sparks can result in a shock.