MACON, Ga. — You can always prepare for a weather-related incident. Multiple reports of water pipe bursts have occurred at businesses, apartments, and homes.
Johnny Davis is the owner of Karsten & Denson Hardware Store. He says the cold temperatures brought in a lot of new and old customers.
"The day after Christmas is when people started coming in droves, and a lot of stores got wiped out," Davis said.
Davis says items like SharkBite plumbing products, heaters, and T-Bar wrenches were just some of the things that flew off the shelf the day after Christmas. Davis says the T-Bar is a must-have to immediately turn off the water to your house so you don't have to wait for a plumber.
If you experience a leak, ensure you know where the water shut-off is for your home. If you are on a public water system, it's often the meter box. Some houses also have a shut-off valve.
The T-bar is also called a water meter key. It's about three feet long and designed to quickly turn on or off the water to your house at the meter. They're usually between $20-$30 and can save you thousands in damages because you can shut a leak off in seconds.
Robert Brookins owns five homes in the Vineville area. He says they all had a water leak from frozen pipes. He didn't expect the central Georgia weather to have such low temperatures. So he came to Karsten and Denson to get all the tools he could get.
"I didn't recognize, I didn't think that these things were going to bust up like that, but you got to do what you got to do," Brookins said.
Brookins needed new pipes and SharkBite plumbing products, and it was easy for him to go to the Ingleside hardware store. He says he'll know what to do next.
"The only thing I can say when it's cold out here, and it hasn't been cold like this in a long time, so it came in so unexpectedly, so everybody needs to shut their water off," Brookins said.
The best thing is to try to avoid a break but still ensure you know what to do before it happens.