All Forum Posts by: James Canoy

My plumber told me a lot of winterization companies are a joke, and from my experience a property that was supposedly “winterized” can still have bursted pipes. Foreclosure we bought had 6 that needed to be replaced.

My last house in CT was winterized when purchased. Had probably 20 breaks throughout the water and heat loops. They must have winterized it too late. I always assume there are issues and do my best to look for them when I'm there doing my inspection. If I see one break, I assume there are a lot more.

We have dealt with a lot of frozen properties & in most cases you will need to replace all the copper as pin hole cracks can appear in several places in one length. The last one was a single family home & took a week & $2200 in materials as a lot of the cast iron barely functional drains were also replaced. Also some of the older homes could still have soap/dirt/grease coated drum traps that invariably freeze & are tough to get to. 

To this date unless the water lines were purged & then filled with RV freeze protection its not a guarantee. We had a lake house job recently whereby the owner insisted he purged/drained the lines then blew them out with air. A 3/4 copper lateral burst in the most difficult spot to repair/replace with Pex. We eventually replaced all the copper runs with Pex.

We then found an old forgotten P-trap buried in a wall that also cracked & showed up when they moved the washer back to that drain. 

Also if hot water heater tanks, dishwasher pumps etc retain any water you can get freeze damage.