Frozen line, split pipe, water coming up through the floor, or nothing at all from the tap — call and tell us where in Campton you are and whose water you’re on. The village precinct, the Estates and a private well all shut off in different places, and that decides the first five minutes.
The Mad River comes down out of Waterville Valley beside Route 49 and slows into Campton Pond above the Upper Village, behind a hydro dam that has stood there since 1890. On August 28, 2011, Irene put enough water into it that the earthen part of the dam’s training wall overtopped. The emergency plan went into effect and about two hundred people were evacuated from a mobile home community — ninety homes, by the fire chief’s count.
The detail that stays with us is a line in the incident report. Many of those homes took water underneath, into the insulation. That’s the soft spot on any manufactured home, flood or no flood. The supply comes up out of the ground into the belly under the floor, usually wrapped in heat tape, and the whole thing is only as good as the tape, the wrap and the skirting around it. Soak that insulation once and it never holds heat the same way. The next January finds out.
So we’ll ask a couple of odd questions when you call. A house on a foundation, or a home on piers? Village water, Estates water, or your own well? Those two answers tell us where the shut-off is, what probably froze, and which parts go on the truck.
If you live in a manufactured home in Campton, walk the skirting after the first big plow storm. One panel pushed in by a snowbank is how a lot of January calls start.
Most of our frozen-line calls from manufactured homes trace back to one of three things. Heat tape that quit — or got unplugged when somebody needed the outlet. A skirting panel knocked loose by a plow bank and never put back. Or belly insulation that sagged, tore, or got wet and stopped doing its job. The riser where the water comes up through the ground is where it lets go first.
If it’s happening now, get the water off. On a well, that’s the pump breaker and then the valve by the pressure tank. On the precinct or the Estates, it’s the main valve inside; the valve out at the street belongs to the water system. Then open a faucet. Gentle heat on a pipe you can see — a hair dryer, not a torch — and keep space heaters out of a skirted crawlspace full of insulation and dry leaves. That one burns houses down.
What we do after: find the frozen run, thaw it, pressure-test the whole system rather than just the piece that split, and look at the tape, the wrap and the skirting while we’re under there. Insulation that’s been under floodwater gets replaced, not trusted. You hear the price before we cut anything.
Emergency work in Campton is a call-out charge plus $120–$250 an hour, toward the high end after hours or up a side road off Route 49 that hasn’t been plowed. A single split line usually comes in around $400–$1,200. A home that froze through the belly costs more, and you’ll know the number before anything comes apart.
Yes. The plumbing is simpler than a stick-built house in some ways and touchier in others, because most of it lives in the belly under the floor. Frozen risers and failed heat tape are the usual calls. We thaw it, test it, and check the skirting and insulation so the same thing doesn’t happen in the next cold snap.
Close the main valve inside the house, then call us. If it won’t close, or the leak is out in the yard, call the district’s water office too — the curb stop at the street is theirs to operate, and the line from that curb stop to your house is the owner’s to fix. The district keeps an after-hours emergency number.
Maybe. Moving water doesn’t usually break pipes, but it soaks insulation and drowns anything electrical — well pumps, water heaters, the pressure switch. If your wellhead was under water, don’t drink from it until it’s been tested. We go through the plumbing side and tell you plainly what has to be replaced and what can stay.
Depends on the morning and which end of town you’re in. The Upper Village off Route 175 and the top of Route 49 are different drives. We won’t quote a time we can’t keep. You’ll get an honest place in line, and somebody walking you through shutting the water off, which is what actually limits the damage.
Usually the water damage, not the pipe itself — that’s the normal split in New Hampshire. Read the vacancy clause in your policy too. Most carriers expect the heat kept at 55°F or higher, or the water shut off and drained, while a home sits empty. Take photos before anybody starts cleaning up.
Tell us what’s happening and we’ll give you a straight answer — what it likely is, what it should cost, and when we can be there.
Describe what’s happening and where the property is. We’ll come back with a straight answer on what it likely is, what it should cost, and when we can be there. If it’s an emergency, say so in the first line.
We reply to every request within 2 business hours.
