As a pool CORSA has all too many high severity losses every year due to freezing and bursting pipes. In fact, freezing/bursting pipes in the aggregate accounts for much of our yearly property losses as a pool.
Attached is some additional information on this all too common loss for our members.
Extracted from the document:
"Surprisingly, ice forming in a pipe does not typically cause a break where the ice blockage occurs. It's not the radial expansion of ice against the wall of the pipe that causes the break. Rather, following a complete ice blockage in a pipe, continued freezing and expansion inside the pipe causes water pressure to increase downstream -- between the ice blockage and a closed faucet at the end. It's this increase in water pressure that leads to pipe failure. Usually the pipe bursts where little or no ice has formed. Upstream from the ice blockage the water can always retreat back towards its source, so there is no pressure build-up to cause a break. Water has to freeze for ice blockages to occur. Pipes that are adequately protected along their entire length by placement within the building's insulation, insulation on the pipe itself, or heating, are safe."
James Hale, ARM-P, ARM-E
Risk Control Consultant
County Risk Sharing Authority
209 East State Street
Columbus, OH 43215
614.246.1630 FAX 614.220.0209
