How did this weather affect your properties?

[Yuriy Skripnichenko]

How did this weather affect your properties? Or why does anyone like winter?

Besides all the snow that we are getting this year (here in Philly we had 5 snow storms and super low temperatures, 25-year low). 

I got my first maintenance request on January 3rd. Broken sewage pipe in the basement. Flooded with …you know what.

January 5th my second maintenance request came in for “no hot water in the bathroom sink”. Frozen pipe in the crawl space in the basement.

January 7th two more: frozen pipe and as a result broken washing machine valve leaking all over the laundry room. Which is above another crawl space. In addition, different building tenant reported “no water in the kitchen sink”. Same issue.

So 4 brakes in one week. Not easy to find a plumber willing to work in this temperatures and conditions.

Moral of the story: always have reserve account for this type of expense AND make sure that the pipes in your crawl space are insulates as well as the walls and floors to avoid similar brakes.

My friends ask: aren’t you sick of all your tenant’s issues and “crap” you have to deal with? And the answer is no. It is part of the business that I have to deal with.

Anyone have other stories to add?

[Steve Babiak]

Frozen water supply pipes in the kitchen at one rental and also a drain blockage at the same rental where the blockage was determined to be frozen.

And today had an inspection on a flip with guess what - frozen water supply pipes in the upstairs bathroom.

Lucky for me I can solve the frozen supply pipes at both houses using a hot water recirculation system, where when the water temperature in the pipes gets too low a valve opens to mix some of the water from the hot pipe into the cold line; this keeps hot water in the hot pipe much hotter (no longer need to run the water for a long while to heat it up), and sends warm water into the cold pipe so that the nearly frozen water flows back to the water heater to be reheated.