This week's very cold weather in the Treasure Valley hasn't caused a lot of problems when it comes to frozen pipes.
That’s despite Boise setting another record low this morning of 4 degrees, breaking the old record of 7 set back in 1985. It's the third-straight morning of record cold.
United Water Idaho's Mark Snider says the company has had 10 calls from people without water.
“And in almost every case the cause was either garden hose still attached to the faucet outside,” says Snider, “or in a couple of cases, the homeowners left the garage door open and that’s just allowed the cold air to rush in and that’s where a lot of the pipes, the water heater and that infrastructure is and that’s caused some problems.”
He says the current low temps haven’t been around long enough to drive the frost level deep underground. “The other reason is because snow is a good insulator and that layer of snow, the 7 or 8 inches we got, has helped insulate the plumbing from the cold weather.”
Snider says homeowners who didn't get their sprinkler systems blown out before the blast of cold weather may still be OK. He says if the weather warms up, and the snow clears, it can still be done. At the very least, Snider says, homeowners should shut off the water at the source to the sprinkler system to keep freezing water from getting into other plumbing.
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