JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Plumber Alec Garrenton (right) talks with Troutville property owner William Modica about a frozen kitchen pipe Monday.

JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Brant Hancock (left) and Alec Garrenton of A.T. Plumbing based in Troutville fix a valve on a hot water heater that froze and then burst.

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This week's chill will buy a few days for snowmen in Roanoke, but it might be tough on your plumbing.

Below-freezing temperatures blew into the region on New Year's Day, and temperatures dipped as low as 15 degrees in Roanoke on Saturday.

It'll stay close to freezing, if not colder, through this weekend, said Peter Corrigan, a National Weather Service hydrologist in Blacksburg.

Pipes inside homes aren't vulnerable yet; the cold might hurt them later. Rather, older types of plumbing, or pipes in crawl spaces, in poorly insulated walls or feeding outside faucets are most vulnerable. Frozen pipes swell as water inside them freezes. When it warms, the brittle plumbing will contract and burst.

Barbie Dawson, owner of Crowe Septic and Plumbing in Roanoke, expects the cold weather will help her business for the month. She expects almost five calls a week for quick pipe fixes because of the weather, rather than the typical few a month.

Alec Garrenton, an owner of A.T. Plumbing in Troutville, said he received calls this week from customers without water because their pipes had frozen.

But there's little a plumber can do.

"Just wait," Garrenton said. A plumber's phone will start ringing once the temperature rises above 32 degrees.

That type of emergency call will cost the homeowner about $100, Garrenton said.

Craig Zackmann, owner of Blue Ridge Plumbing, hadn't received a single call by Monday afternoon to fix pipes that had burst because of the cold.

"As cold as it's been and for as long as it's been, people are going to wake up and have a lot more problems" once it's warm again, he said.

Once pipes are frozen, "You've got a 50-50 chance whether it's going to bust or not," Garrenton said.

No heat and a frozen kitchen pipe led to trouble at a house in Salem on Monday. Temperatures in the teens caused the valve to break on the home's hot water heater.

"This isn't a major disaster; it could be worse," said Bill Modica, the Park Place real estate agent trying to sell the house on Rock Lane in Salem. "It's just an inconvenience now."

The puddle in the basement left by the break wasn't enough to cause significant damage, he said.

Garrenton fixed the valve. It was his third time that day tending to plumbing damaged by the chill, and he returned to his normally scheduled jobs after spending a little less than an hour at the house.

The Western Virginia Water Authority has been busier than most plumbers. The authority called in an extra work crew over the weekend as it scrambled to fix about a dozen water main breaks, spokeswoman Sarah Baumgardner said.

The two largest breaks, on Merriman Road and Chaparral Drive in Roanoke County, affected service on about 10 streets in the Penn Forest neighborhood Saturday.

Water mains, usually made of cast iron or ductile iron, are rigid and break when the ground around them shifts and swells from freezing and thawing.

"If it stays this cold, or if we have cold and it suddenly warms up, then cold again, it'll be stressful on the lines," Baumgardner said.