Burst pipes at Joliet housing authority building creates sheets of icicles

Burst heating pipes created ice sheets down the front of the J.F. Kennedy Terrace building in Joliet.

The Housing Authority of Joliet said the breaks, all of which may have occurred Friday, took away heat from only three units, and two of those already were unoccupied because the residents left to spend the holidays with family.

The exterior appearance was more dramatic with the leaking water frozen into sheets of ice cascading down several stories of the building at 2200 Oneida Street.

Some residents outside the building on Tuesday were curious about what caused the ice sheets and said they were not affected by the heat loss.

“I just heard about it,” William Butts said. “I don’t know what happened.”

The HAJ issued a news release saying the burst pipes were repaired with heat restored within three hours after their discovery.

“The cause of the broken pipes was determined to be a result of either hoarding items in front of the baseboard heaters, blocking air flow, or turning the heat off in the unit for extended periods of time during subzero temperatures, causing the water to stop flowing,” The HAJ release said.

Two of the bursts occurred on the fifth floor, and a third occurred on the eighth floor of the building.

HAJ Regional Asset Manager Mike Gentile was at the building on Tuesday.

The heat pipes run along the wall of the rooms, which led to the ice sheets running down the front of Kennedy Terrace after the bursts, Gentile said.

The sheets along the side of the building were above the area of the front entrance, leading to that entrance being closed and people being directed to a rear entrance.

Gentile said leaks at two units definitely occurred Friday. The third leak may have occurred the same day, but was not discovered until Monday when steam produced by the leak set off a fire alarm for the unit and brought the fire department to the building, he said.

“The heat in the building was never off,” Gentile said. “The only units that were off were the units where the pipe burst, and that was repaired in three hours.”

Gentile said one resident was staying in a unit when the burst occurred and lost heat for the three hours, but left to stay with family.

HAJ CEO Michael Simelton said residents will be issued a reminder not to turn off heat if they leave their units and added such winter pipe bursts related to residents leaving the building are not unusual.

“This has happened to us before,” Simelton said. “It happens all the time.”

Simelton said residents will be issued a reminder not to turn off the heat. He noted that residents do not get a heating bill, but some may turn off heat out of habit from when they lived on their own.