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Be Ready: Frozen Pipes Are No Winter Wonderland

Check out the tips below and reduce your chances of having cold weather damamage to your home plumbing system.
Click the image above to check out some helpful tips that can reduce your chances of having cold weather damage your home plumbing system.

Extreme cold can cause pipes and the ground to expand and contract, and very cold river water can also make water mains more brittle. In part, those factors can help to explain why more than half of Philadelphia’s water main breaks occur during the coldest months in a typical year.

But our more than 3,000 miles of water mains aren’t alone when it comes to feeling the impacts of Old Man Winter.

Each year during the winter season, we field hundreds (sometimes many hundreds!) of calls from residents experiencing frozen or burst pipes. Last winter we received 1,295 calls related to cold weather problems. The vast majority of those calls—1,143 to be exact—came during a particularly cold stretch of February when Philadelphia didn’t top the freezing point for eight days straight and temperatures dipped as low as two degrees.

You can take some simple steps that can help reduce your chances of experiencing a frozen water meter or burst pipes this winter.

Check out the tips on this page and see if your home and plumbing are ready for the worst of winter weather. You'll also find tips for what to do if you think your pipes are frozen.

Not sure which part of the plumbing you’re responsible for? Check out our page on customer responsibility by clicking here.