Water lines fall to cold

PHOTOGRAPHER: Peter R. Barber

Doug Thorpe of Mariaville, left, who invented his "Kant Freeze' warm water pump system, and Master Plumber Mark Karandy of Duanesburg work together to thaw a frozen water line to a home on Reynolds Road in Mariaville Thursday, February 19, 2015.

Weeks of brutally cold weather have driven the frost line so deep into the ground that water lines are freezing, often leaving homeowners with costly plumbing bills.

A lateral line branches off from a water main in a public water system and transports water directly to a home. In the past week, Crisafulli Bros. Plumbing and Heating Contractors Inc. has responded to about a half-dozen calls to defrost frozen laterals in the city of Schenectady.

General manager Alan Ayers said the company typically gets between two and six of those calls across the Capital Region for an entire winter, but this season, the count is already over 20.

“I think it’s just the sustained cold,” he said. “It’s just driving the frost down deep.”

One 33-degree day — Feb. 12 — is the only break the region has seen from nearly a month’s worth of below-freezing temperatures, according to National Weather Service meteorologist John Quinlan. As of Wednesday, the average temperature for February was 12.7 degrees.

“If this were to continue, it would tie for the fourth-coldest month ever in Albany,” Quinlan said.

There’s a pretty good chance of that happening. Except for a brief warm-up to the upper 30s forecast for Sunday, temperatures are expected to stay well below freezing.

Right now, the frost line — the depth to which groundwater in the soil is expected to freeze — is at around 21 inches. That’s beneath a thick insulating blanket of snow, Quinlan noted. In places where the snow has been removed, the frost line reaches much deeper.

Laterals are more likely to freeze when they’re located beneath spots like roads and sidewalks, where snow has been removed.

Five of the frozen laterals the city of Amsterdam has responded to this season were at homes where the insulating snowpack had been removed above the lateral, said Ray Halgas, the city’s public works supervisor. Last week, one Amsterdam homeowner’s lateral was frozen 62 feet from the house.

“It was actually out in our right-of-way, out in the road that it was frozen,” Halgas said.

Homeowner negligence often plays a part in laterals freezing, noted Christopher Satterlee, superintendent for Gloversville’s Water Department. The department has responded to several calls this season for frozen laterals.

“They’ll have a broken basement window, and the line will start to freeze, and it works its way out to the water main,” he said.

Unheated basements can also contribute to the problem, he noted.

When a lateral freezes, the homeowner is often left to foot the repair bill. Amsterdam is one of few localities that takes responsibility for lateral repairs. The city pays for problems that occur in the stretch of pipe that runs from the water main to the edge of its right-of-way, typically located at the edge of the sidewalk closest to the home.

In most municipalities, homeowners are responsible for the cost of repairs along the entire length of the lateral, said Ayers. The same is true in Schenectady, according to Paul LaFond, director of wastewater for the city.

“Considering the depth of the frost and the cold that we’ve had, the city is in good shape,” he noted.

If a lateral breaks and needs to be dug up, it could cost the homeowner over $10,000, Ayers said. Fortunately, that’s not often the case. Most lines can simply be defrosted, he said.

When a lateral line freezes, a home is left completely without water.

“Usually, they go to brush their teeth or take a shower and the water comes out and then doesn’t come out any longer.” Ayers said.

If that happens, he suggested, go to the basement to see if water is leaking. If it is, the main shut-off valve should be shut. If there are no visible signs of a leak, a pipe is probably frozen.

One do-it-yourself way to try to thaw a frozen lateral line is to put a space heater near it, Halgas said.

“Face it toward the water lateral and leave one of your faucets open, and maybe after a couple hours, you will see water come through, because a lot of times, the foundation is so cold and there’s no heat, and then it actually freezes coming through the wall. So, sometimes, people do that for an hour, and all of sudden, boom, they’ve got water,” he said.

Ayers cautioned against using hair dryers or blow torches to try to thaw frozen pipes.

“When it’s frozen, it’s not leaking. When it’s thawed out, there’s potential for a lot more water damage if they’re not prepared to react to the water that’s gonna come out,” he explained.

Ayers recommended calling a reputable plumber to solve the problem. His company thaws laterals by sending a small electric current through the metal pipe. The process typically restores water service within two or three hours, he said.

If it’s a simple thawing job that requires no digging or pipe repair, the price typically ranges from $100 to around $700, depending on how long it takes.

Mark A. Karandy, owner of Mark A. Karandy Plumbing and Heating, based in Duanesburg, pumps hot water into frozen laterals with a special hose and recirculating pump. For a simple defrosting job, the cost averages around $400, but if it involves digging up the lateral, the price could jump to between $4,000 and $6,000, he said.

Karandy has responded to around 10 calls for frozen laterals in the last three weeks, which he said is more than usual.

“The frost is really down in the ground right now, deeper than I’ve seen it in probably close to 30 years,” he said.

In Cobleskill, the frost line has dropped below three feet, said Joe Redmond, the village’s water superintendent.

“It’s been pretty tough digging,” he said. “Any time you have a water main break or are trying to locate a curb shut-off, the ground is harder than the road. You have to chip through it with pick-axes and bars. It’s been a nightmare.”

The village has only had one frozen lateral reported so far this season, but has had to contend with eight water main breaks, he said.

To prevent a lateral line from freezing, Satterlee recommended heating basements and crawl spaces.

Halgas also suggested leaving a cold water tap running. The water doesn’t have to be left on at full blast, he noted, but just enough to allow a steady stream to flow.