Homeowners face many weather-related woes

The weather has been big news with extended low temperatures, December's record snowfall of 14.3 inches in 24 hours, school closings, government offices shut down, and even commerce taking a hiatus. Many Ozarkers got a far whiter Christmas than they wanted.

It is an ill wind indeed that blows nobody good, and in this case, it is area contractors who are benefiting. KennCo Construction is one example. This is one of the busiest times of the year for KennCo, which does 85 percent of its work in insurance-related repairs, the other 15 percent in remodeling.

"We're probably one of the major insurance claim repair firms in this area," said Hal Grissum, KennCo's owner. "We are staffed to (meet the need). I have 12 carpenters on payroll, two job foremen and two estimators. We don't have the luxury of a new home builder; we have to staff it tomorrow if you have a broken pipe this afternoon. That's the difference between specialty construction and new construction."

Besides frozen pipes and a few porches that collapsed from the weight of the snow, damage that Grissum has seen this year includes the aftermath of house fires.

"House fires are some of the challenges this time of year. If it's a bathroom fire we have to winterize plumbing or it will freeze. If fire breaks through the roof, we have to close the roof in or the snow will get in and cause additional damages," Grissum said.

Generally, a fireplace fire built to last a day is OK, but the extended cold, wintery days with continuous fires cause the flues to heat up, he said.

Bob Titus, agent with American Family Insurance, agreed. "Most people understand the importance of having the flue checked periodically and cleaned once a year. People who didn't anticipate the need for using their fireplaces may have neglected some of those precautions and overstressed the flues, in particular those people not accustomed to burning wood."

Another business affected by adverse weather is the roofing business. Calls to repair roof leaks have "really started to come in" at Acclaimed Roofing LLC's office, said Lisa Ege, owner of the business.

"One concern is penetrations where the flashings on pipe boots and seals have worn out. When we have a lot of cold and hot, you get decking expansion and contraction with the nails working up through the shingles. A lot of ice will push nails on through," she said.

Ege added that houses with older roofs may experience leaks due to busted seals and curling shingles. The gradual melt allows the water to work its way through. Other trouble spots are eaves, gutters and soffits, where ice dams build up.

The flipside to getting more business repairing weather-damaged roofs, however, is how weather constraints ... delay the roofing of new buildings. "Right now, all my projects are new construction," Ege said. "A good contractor wouldn't put shingles on in the extreme cold weather. ... If a shingle is too cold and they are using pneumatic air guns, they have the potential to blow the nail through the shingle. There is a greater potential for those shingles to blow off. We had to halt one of our projects and then resort to hand nailing because of that reason."

Nailing by hand adds to the time needed to accomplish the task and, hence, to the roofer's costs of putting the roof on. "Our workload has doubled because of projects being put on hold. We are on a time limit. If we can't work for two weeks, that puts the contractor behind, so we have to double up to get the projects completed on time. After this week, we'll be caught up."

Plumbers also are feeling the effect of the weather. Danny Edwards of Connelly Plumbing said, "This year, since the freeze, we have been unusually busy repairing frozen pipes,"

Titus emphasized the pipe problem, especially "with either poorly insulated walls or in enclosed areas where the heat can't circulate properly or in vacant homes where the temperature gets so low that the water trapped within the plumbing expands and breaks the pipes. Once the water gets out it can do quite a bit of damage to homes."

The weather resulted in some strange calls, Edwards said.

"The (home)owner thought he had a burst pipe when water poured through his ceiling. Actually, when the ice melted, pressure built up, forcing the water to enter through the flashing and into the house." He added, "Another strange problem we don't usually have that we've had this year is a lot of roof drains on flat roofs have frozen and burst due to ice build up and extreme temperatures."

Grissum said, "The strangest (call) we've had is to check a roof leak when it's still got five inches of show on the roof."

Although she advises having any leaking roof checked, Ege said that roofs may leak now that never have before because of the gradual way the snow melts.

With rain, the water runs off rapidly. The snow lingered, especially on flat roofs where the water tends to pond. She said moving snow off flat roofs with a shovel is a bad idea because it might cause more damage.

Grissum added, "Weather like this brings out any little defect your house may have."

According to Titus, "American Family's claims office was heavily hit by weather-related claims. I was told there were a great number of leaky roofs; additionally, car accidents due to road conditions resulted in a lot of car insurance claims."