Atlanta freezes about five weeks of nights a year
NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals for Hartsfield-Jackson count an average of 35.7 nights a year at or below freezing [1]. Most fall in January, with 12.8, and December, with 9.1 [2].
That is not many, and that is the problem. Houses here are built for a mild climate, pipes run through crawl spaces and exterior walls, and owners do not drip faucets or wrap pipes the way they do farther north. When a hard freeze comes, it finds those pipes all at once, and the calls come in when the ice thaws.
What happened in the Christmas 2022 freeze
On December 27, 2022, the City of Atlanta's Department of Watershed Management said below-freezing temperatures had caused water main breaks and frozen water pipes on private properties throughout the Atlanta service area [3]. A day earlier the department said it was addressing confirmed breaks in its own system and had not issued a boil water advisory [4].
Freezes do not respect office hours. That one landed on a holiday weekend. This quarter, 1 in 3 calls we answered came in outside business hours, and 1 in 5 on a weekend. For a plumber in a freeze week, that is where most of the burst-pipe calls sit.
City pipe or homeowner pipe: who the caller should call
Inside the City of Atlanta's water service area, Watershed Management is responsible for the service line from the water main to the meter, and the property owner is responsible for the line from the meter to the house [5]. A leak on the owner's side is a plumber's job; a leak on the city's side is the city's.
The city's problem line is ATL 311 at 404-546-0311, open Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with online reporting at all hours; its customer care center is active around the clock for sewer issues [6].
Callers do not know where the meter line is. We ask where the water is coming up: inside the house, in the yard between the house and the meter, or at the street. If it sounds like the street side, we give them the city's number and still take their details in case it turns out to be theirs. If it is inside or on their side of the meter, we book you or alert your on-call plumber. Outside Atlanta's service area, the county or city water utility is different, and you tell us which ones apply where you work.
A freeze week on an Atlanta plumber's line
Water is pouring out of a ceiling in a Kirkwood bungalow at 6 a.m. We ask whether they have found the main shut-off, talk them to it if they have not, take the address, flag it as an emergency and reach your on-call plumber by text and call.
The pipes in a Tucker crawl space froze overnight and nothing comes out of the taps. Nothing is leaking yet. We note the house is without water, book the first slot, and tell the caller to watch for leaks as it thaws.
A sewage backup in a Midtown basement: urgent by most plumbers' rules, so we take the address and reach whoever is on call.
Water heater quote in Alpharetta: we take the tank size and fuel type and book an estimate.
Rules you set once
You decide which calls wake the on-call plumber: active leaks, burst pipes, sewage backups, no water at all, a gas smell, a flooded basement. Everything else goes on the calendar with the fixture, the location in the house and whether the water is shut off.
During a hard freeze many plumbers add a rule: book only active leaks overnight and put everyone else on a morning callback list. We follow whatever you set, and you read the list in one place.
What it costs
Plumbing answering starts from $497 a month, month to month, or 15% off with an annual plan, and your price stays locked for 12 months. We answer in English and Spanish, 24/7, and you are usually live about 48 hours after your first call with us, so you can be set up before the next forecast freeze.