Rental Property Investor · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2018 · 142 posts · 55 votes
I hear stories all the time about tenants going on vacation, turning the heat down, and coming back to burst pipes, which seems to typically end up being the landlord's problem. Is this actually as common as it seems? Does anyone explicitly put this in their leases?
Yes Pex has an amazing freeze capability & because of my negligence I have tested it. Stuff swelled up then settled nicely after the thaw but that was 3/4 inch. I replace all plumbing with Pex whenever I get the chance Of course some guys have no idea how to do it regardless. This is a surprise I found behind one of the showers we tore out. The fittings leaked & the random 2x4's were for support & to shim out the old diverter fitting.
I made the cuts to the old Pex lines you see in the pic.
@Steve Emling having faucets dripping is key. I’ve seen people drywall/insulate areas around pipes in unfinished basements as well as bring a heat source of some kind into the basement. But depending on locations, I think an occasional burst pipe is somewhat inevitable ..
@Account Closed The one time recently the hose spigot froze we (my dad) fixed it with minimal time and labor, and we didn't end up charging the resident in good standing.
Maybe you won't be able to recover the costs. Can your security deposit go toward it at the time of move out? Small claims court? Or can insurance (your homeowner's or their renter's) cover the expense?
@David Krulac , for your "never buy a property with either hot water or steam heat" rule have you ever used anti-freeze in the system? Depending on the formula, some offer freeze protection to -70F or greater, with burst protection well below that. I lived in upstate NY for a time and hired out an old-time plumber with 30 yrs of experience in the area and he claimed he has never seen a hydronic system burst from freezing with the proper antifreeze. That is saying quite a bit as it gets stupid cold up there. I'm certainly not the expert, just what I've read and have been told.
I try not to worry too much about frozen pipes because most supply lines are pretty easy to fix with sharkbites. Amazon has couplings online by the 10-pack for a little over 20 bucks. Lowes sells a new type of sharkbite that is cheaper called evopex that works with pex but not copper or cpvc. I usually use pex anyway because it has some flexibility to it which makes the work easier (and cheaper because elbows are not always needed). Connecting to very old supply lines can be done with cpvc compression couplings or hose clamps and reinforced vinyl tubing but it's better to double up on the hose clamps because they can work loose over time.
@David Krulac Gotcha. I guess the places I looked at and the one I bought had separate systems, so that wasn't an issue. Good to know to take a look at the system in order to see if anti-freeze is even an option.
@Matthew Rembish I've always heard bad things about that heat tape, good to know I may have gotten the wrong impression. I've always just put a space heater in the area, which works well enough most of the time but is a money drain
Yeah, I’ve never had any experience with it but I’ve heard one success story with it. The space heater is probably your most reliable option but is going to cost you, like you said.
@Account Closed Even if you put some language like this in your lease the odds of a tenant having the means to pay for the repairs associated with burst pipes and the rent is very slim.
Unfortunately that doesn’t work by me. The electric and water companies will only transfer service automatically to a landlord when a tenant calls to cancel service. If it gets shut off due to non payment I’m SOL. I’m not sure about gas
We’ve actually been running into the same problem here and trying to think of an innovative solution. Depending on how many properties you have, it could be worth looking into something like the Monnit wireless temperature sensor. The pricing is more than fair and you can place these in the basement or cabinets in your units to alarm you (via text and online) when the sensors reach a certain low or high temperature. This can at least give you a sense of which units might have the recurring issue and which ones are insulated properly.
Best of all is that you can easily mix and match these sensors when you want to move them to another property.
@Account Closed I just had frozen pipes at one of my properties in Berwyn (joy!). It actually ended up not being anyone's fault. The tenant moved out, which we wanted him to do anyways as he was not a good tenant. The gas company shut off the gas during the demolition, and the contractor's didn't realize it because it was unseasonably warm... until it wasn't!
I found out that you can buy a wrap that goes around your pipes for areas of the property that have more risk of having frozen pipes. The wrap essentially keeps the temperature warm enough so that the pipes won't freeze. We will be wrapping all of these pipes once we replace them.
The silver lining is that we are replacing most of the pipes anyways, and these galvanized pipes probably should be replaced either way.
I try not to worry too much about frozen pipes because most supply lines are pretty easy to fix with sharkbites. Amazon has couplings online by the 10-pack for a little over 20 bucks. Lowes sells a new type of sharkbite that is cheaper called evopex that works with pex but not copper or cpvc. I usually use pex anyway because it has some flexibility to it which makes the work easier (and cheaper because elbows are not always needed). Connecting to very old supply lines can be done with cpvc compression couplings or hose clamps and reinforced vinyl tubing but it's better to double up on the hose clamps because they can work loose over time.
Unfortunately, the shark bite connections create a weak point and are the first place to fail when there is pressure in the line due to the expansion of the freezing water. I've had lots of frozen pipes, but my only "burst" pipe was at a shark bite connection.
The quality of some brands is better than others and I think the type of pipe can make a difference. I've never had one that I installed fail but I've seen some existing ones fail on copper pipe. My guess is some copper pipe exerts more pressure on the fitting when it freezes. My hope is that quality has improved since then because I am not about to do it the old fashioned way with copper.
I think frozen pipes is just a risk that you have to accept if you're buying property where it gets below freezing. At the end of the day you can do a lot of due diligence to try to prevent it but there's no 100% way to prevent a tenant from deciding to do some cold weather camping in your unit or head for the hills with no notice when it's -10F. However here are some preventatives I would suggest:
- Replace hydronic heating systems with electric baseboards. Electric heat is the least likely to fail of all heating systems and is also the lowest barrier to entry for a tenant to use. Granted, if you're paying for heat this might not be a lucrative option for you.
- When buying the unit, try to find where the plumbing is located in the building. In newer duplexes in my area, they tend to build them with a single wet wall (where all the plumbing runs) that is also the firewall between units. This is ideal because both sides end up heating that wall which gives you better chances of your pipes staying warm.
- Also when buying a unit, try to ensure that there aren't any isolated zones or arms hanging out in an exterior wall or something and if there are think about ways to mitigate them. Isolated zones or water in an exterior wall will likely freeze far before any of the interior pipes.
-Ensure your tenant has renters insurance to mitigate damages from burst pipes. Ensure that your landlord insurance covers damages resulting from frozen pipes.
-Check in on your units (or have your PM do it) regularly during long periods of below 32 temps. This doesn't have to be daily or even every other day unless you're going through long periods where the temp is 20F or below.
-Make it clear to your tenants that they should let you know when they're going to be out of the unit for more than 2 days. Just tell them it's because you want to check in and make sure the unit is ok in their absence.
I don't think many people would advocate for going back to sweating copper fittings. I use PEX with crimp fittings nearly exclusively. I always considered the shark bite connectors to be temporary in most cases, although I know that's not how they were intended and I myself have several in my primary residence in accessible areas (before I evolved to crimp) that have lasted for over ten years.
@Harrison Liggett do you have any experience with these? They seem interesting, but it looks like it's a local radio only good for a few hundred feet, so you would have to connect it to the tenants phone, right?
My only experience so far is giving them a call to confirm the functionality and pricing. (I got a representative on the first ring and she was very helpful).
From what I understand the idea is that you would need the what they call a 'gateway' (wifi modem looking thing) which is what talks to the cell towers. You would pay a low fee per month per gateway because it's using cellular. This gateway talks to the sensors in the house wirelessly and then you can see what those sensors are reading live from your phone or the web application from off site.
This would be something that, to my knowledge, you manage yourself to keep an eye on things. I was thinking we would use it for our vacancies while they are being worked on but I suppose you could have them in units that are occupied as well!
Again this is all just my understanding and I won't know the pros/cons until we roll out a couple to beta test.
Hope that helps! But also I do recommend just giving them a call and telling them what you need. They were super helpful.
I have a vacant unit in Iowa. And it is about to get real cold in the next few days. I leave all cabinet doors to the sinks open. And all heat ducts and inside doors wide open. And I visit the unit every couple days to run water through the pipes. I keep the heat at about 60 degrees. So far, so good.
In our lease we state that the furnace must be set to at least 60 degrees. Also, when we are expecting incredibly cold weather (like this week in Ohio!), I send out an email reminder to all of our tenants with tips on how to prevent frozen pipes (see below):
“With the extremely cold temperatures we are expecting over the next couple of days, we thought we would send out just a couple of tips. These are some things that we do at our own house to help protect pipes from freezing:
1. Make sure the furnace is set to at least 60 degrees.
2. Open vanity and sink cabinet doors so that warm air can reach the pipes under the sinks.
3. Leave faucets slightly open so that the water runs at a trickle.
4. Disconnect any garden hoses from outdoor faucets.
If you notice any issues, you can try heating pipes with a hair dryer to get them flowing again, or of course, give us a call!“