Some plumbing and snow-removal companies have seen their business soar even as the cold and snow have increased maintenance costs for homeowner associations and others.
At Drains Plus Inc., employees have been working 18-hour days to keep up with demand from homeowners whose pipes have frozen since temperatures tumbled last week.
“We are swamped,” Jeremy Keefer, Drains Plus president, said Monday. “There are a lot of people out there without water. We are still getting a lot of calls from people who have frozen pipes; there is a lot of property damage.”
The fierce cold has gripped Denver and the Front Range since the end of last week. Temperatures began falling Thursday and reached 7 degrees by midnight, according to the National Weather Service. On Friday, the thermometer dipped as low as minus 1 and averaged a bone-chilling 3 degrees. The temperature at Denver International Airport on Monday at 4:53 p.m. was 8 degrees.
Keefer said he has seen as much as a 30 percent increase in business since Friday. On Monday, he had a masseuse come to a morning meeting and give each of the six employees who are doing the work a half-hour massage “to ease the pain a little bit. They have been working their butts off.”
Drains Plus’ prices vary widely, costing from $150 to several thousand dollars depending on the situation.
Mobile home parks have been particularly hard hit by the cold, Keefer said.
“We have calls every day asking, ‘Did we turn off the water?”‘ said Tom Zornes, area property supervisor at Foxridge Farms Mobile Home Park in Aurora, where pipes have been freezing.
Rotor Rooter in Denver generally sees an increase of up to 10 percent in calls during a cold snap, said Brian Adair, Roto Rooter production manager.
Warmer temperatures will increase the numbers of calls to plumbers as ice melts and thawing pipes begin to leak, experts predict. Roto Rooter’s business climbs by about 20 percent when that happens, Adair said.
“That’s where the problems are, when they burst. That’s when it gets exciting, when we get some 35- and 40-degree days,” said Larry Bell, chief executive of Bell Plumbing.
Bell’s business is up mainly because of an increase in calls from people whose heating units failed as arctic cold blanketed the area.
Any increase in Bell’s revenues will help recoup what he lost during recent back-to-back snowstorms that dumped more than 40 inches on Denver and closed the business for four days.
The bitter cold also has kept Xcel Energy crews busy. In Highlands Ranch, workers spent the past four days installing a bypass to a broken gas line.
Up to 20,000 homes could have gone without heat had the line been shut down, but instead only 61 homes were evacuated. The bypass was completed Monday, Xcel officials said.
AAA Colorado has experienced some of the heaviest call volume for roadside assistance in its 84-year history over the past three weeks, AAA spokesman Eric Escudero said.
“While we always get busy during the storm, we had our busiest period after the storm this time. This morning we have seen a huge (number) of dead batteries,” he said.
Cold, which sucks the life from batteries, can also reduce tire pressure, causing flat tires.
And some motorists call AAA when they lock the key inside their vehicle and step out to scrape frost and snow from their windows, said Escudero.
The snow that fell over the holidays is stretching the resources of some businesses.
Many office developments and homeowner associations in the area have already blown through the budgets they had set aside for snow removal.
“We have seen quite a few of our clients go through their snow-removal costs for the year. What some are doing is dipping into reserves for the association,” said Tim Larson, president of Westwind Management Group, which manages 46 communities, including parts of the development at the former Lowry Air Force Base.
Some of the communities may have to levy a special assessment on residents, he said.
“It is a pretty sad situation. If we have no more snow until this time next year, we might be OK, but we have already spent more than double what we spent last year,” said Daryll Propp, owner of Propp Realty, which manages 18 office buildings in Jefferson County.
On the flip side, operators of snow-removal companies are working nonstop and pulling in the money.
“Most of our crews have been out for 25 days straight because once you get the snow removal done, you have to address the ice,” said Carrie Knots of Falls by Fox. The company performs snow removal for shopping centers and office buildings.
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
Denver’s deep freeze
High and low temperatures at Denver International Airport during the latest arctic blast, according to the National Weather Service:
Friday: 7 1
Saturday: 8 -8
Sunday: 11 1
Monday: 18 0
