AUSTIN (KXAN) — Icy conditions took over Central Texas roads Friday and it’s only expected to get worse. That’s a concern for plumbers and HVAC technicians across the area.
On Thursday morning, Radiant Plumbing & Air Conditioning’s longtime master plumber Preston Nichols and HVAC technician Rick Foust made some house calls. They started at northeast Austin homeowner Will King’s home. King had initially called for a routine maintenance service but decided to take some preventative measures after watching the KXAN weather forecast Wednesday night.
“I heard Jim at KXAN talking about how he’s never seen it this cold for so long in decades,” he said. “I just learned that I haven’t been dripping my faucets correctly, so that’s good to hear that now I’ll get it done right.”
Officials believe it’s these types of preventative calls that can make all the difference when freezing temperatures hit. However, those at Radiant Plumbing & Air Conditioning understand it doesn’t always happen that way.
“It’s just a whole bunch of emergency calls,” Brad Casebier, the company’s CEO said. “When this happened last time we probably had about 10 times the call volume of a normal day.”
That’s about 1,000 calls or more — daily. He said the calls can range from no heat to busted pipes flooding homes.
“That’s just such a bummer for people because we can fix that but then they have issues that carry on and on after we’re gone,” Casebier said.
He has crews ready to go throughout the holiday weekend. He added they will also have crews on standby to respond to any emergency day or night.
“We are getting ready for a lot of calls, this hasn’t happened in quite a few years but when we find that temperatures do not come out of freezing for more than 24 hours and then drops into the teens it’s really destructive to plumbing,” Casebier said. “The systems that we do in Austin are not really designed for that kind of weather.”
King had this advice for fellow homeowners.
“I think at the very least you should go online and look at some basic tips on how to protect your stuff because it’s a lot easier to drip your pipes ahead of time than to deal with a burst pipe afterward,” he said.
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