A 70 degree difference in four days is welcome change, but not for homeowners dealing with frozen pipes.
“We responded to 43 incidents of pipes bursting over a 24 hour period counting the ones we’ve gone today, it’s probably about 60,” said Assistant Fire Chief of Administration Bryan Tyner.
Tyner said you can blame our rapid warm up for the problems. From Wednesday to Saturday, we're going to see a 70 degree difference in temperature. Wednesday’s low hit around -28 degrees and Saturday’s high could hit in the mid-40s.
Mike Burke a Twin Cities plumber talked with WCCO Radio a while back on what causes pipes to burst.
“The water freezes and expands, when it expands, especially in copper, it will expand the copper out and the copper will split,” said Burke. “The freeze acts like a plug. Once it thaws then it sprays out the water.”
Tyner is expecting Saturday to be their busiest day when it comes to calls of pipe bursting. To avoid future frozen pipes experts say to let in warm air into cold spaces where your pipes live and if possible, insulate the pipes.
“We deal with burst pipes after every deep freeze, it happens. But not to this extent,” said Tyner.