Frozen solid

Plumbers try to keep up with frozen pipes, broken heating system calls during cold snap

While many Islanders were home in bed during last week’s bitter cold, Sarah Forrester Wendt was sleeping on her Charlottetown restaurant’s floor.

That’s because the pipes froze at My Plum, My Duck, and Forrester Wendt wanted to make sure the heaters she had running were keeping the place warm. Forrester Wendt said the worst thing she could think of was what would happen if a pipe burst.

“I love my restaurant,” she said.

She said the restaurant’s furnace stopped working last week as it tried to keep up with the extreme cold that hit P.E.I. recently.

“I got there one morning and the pipes were frozen and the place was really cold,” she said.

First the pipes froze on one side of the restaurant, leaving the kitchen without running water.

Those thawed out, but the next night pipes near the bathroom froze in a different part of the building.

Forrester Wendt said she kept the restaurant open and it took the better part of a day to get the pipes thawed.

“We were quite overjoyed when the water started running because you realize how much water it takes,” she said.

My Plum, My Duck wasn’t the only place struggling with problems associated with frigid temperatures and strong winds over the recent weeks.

Brent Campbell, service manager for Bevan Brothers Plumbing and Heating, said his company has conducted about 200 service calls since Boxing

Day.

That’s about twice as many calls as usual for this time of year, he said. “Extremely busy.” Those calls mostly involved frozen pipes and heating systems that stopped working.

Campbell said the company has been making a lot of afterhours calls just to keep up with the demand.

“It’s been a struggle,” he said. Blair LaPierre, owner of Mr. Plumber, said his company’s phones have barely stopped ringing since the cold snap hit. “It’s just been crazy,” he said. LaPierre said along with the frozen pipe calls they are seeing people run out of oil because they are using so much with the colder weather.

“We are looking forward to some warm weather pretty soon.”

RYAN ROSS/THE GUARDIAN Sarah Forrester Wendt, owner of My Plum, My Duck in Charlottetown, stands under one of the spots where the pipes froze in her restaurant during the recent cold snap that hit P.E.I.