It's a homeowner’s worst nightmare... Everything you own soaked. Walls, carpets, furniture all destroyed because of a tiny crack, caused by frozen water in your pipes.

In these difficult economic times it can be tough to sell a house and this Sparks family found that it can be even harder once the pipes break.

Kim Calderoni- -Home Owner--
"We figured there had to have been a break somewhere because nobody's been here, so it’s not like somebody could have left the water on."

Calderoni was hoping to sell her deceased mother's home with as few hassles as possible. The family thought they had done everything they needed to do, the power was on and thermostat was left at 68 degrees. But as Travis Conklin from Servpro told us it can be hard to tell if a pipe has broken until the temperatures come back up.

Travis Conklin- -Servpro- -
"It’s been so cold out in the teens and single digits, it wasn't until it got warmer out the copper pipes started to unthaw and the broken areas broke through."

Because there are not really any warning signs the best thing to do is to have someone come in your home and check that the home is properly insulated. The water damage done in this home is so bad that walls in the basement have to come down all the way back to framing. All the carpet affected by the leak has to be taken out and replaced

Kim Calderoni- -Home Owner—
"I was concerned because we were on vacation and our house is the exact same setup next door, this could have been our house with everything in it."

As bad as this may seem, Travis said he had seen much worse and expects it to continue with the amount of abandoned houses rising.
Companies like Servpro are called in to help prevent mold from forming in carpets and walls. That's a secondary problem with flooded homes. If your pipes burst experts say be sure to turn off the water and electricity before ever entering the home.