It may be a little tough to book an appointment for a plumber to come to your home or business for the coming weeks after a large number of pipes freeze in this cold weather, but it won't be like the 2021 freeze after which many had to wait weeks to get a plumber.
A hard freeze is here this week in Texas, where Houston, San Antonio and Austin face night after night of near-freezing or even sub-freezing temperatures, but one expert says we can cut back on the need for plumbers just by following simple pipe-saving rules.
But again, this isn't going to be like the deadly February 2021 freeze that left millions in the cold; the difference is that this time the temperatures will be above freezing at least for a little while during the days, and that's enough to get us through as long as we wrap our pipes, the host of the Texas Home Improvement Show, Jim Dutton, says,
"The reason we had such a hard time last time, we went below freezing and then stayed below freezing for several days and so more pipes broke than normal.
"The big thing's gonna be: Open up the cabinet doors, keep heat going to outside walls where there's plumbing -- cover it, cover it, cover it!
"If you don't have the right stuff to cover it, just wrap a towel around the pipes...everything helps."
But should we be letting our faucets drip?
"No, it's really something we should not be doing, we should be wrapping our pipes, covering the hose bibs all that stuff to protect our pipes, then we don't need 'em dripping!"