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29 December 2010
Last updated at 05:03 ET
Scottish Water has said it is dealing with four times the normal level of calls from customers needing help with burst pipes, following the recent thaw.
The utility said its staff had taken about 24,000 calls since Christmas Eve.
About 75% of the calls have been from customers with internal pipe problems. The firm said it could give advice in these cases but it was a householder's responsibility to arrange repairs.
Some plumbers have been working 14-hour shifts to try to stem the deluge.
Scottish Water said it was only responsible for maintaining mains pipes.
Its customer services director, Peter Farrer, told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme: "In 26 years in this business this is certainly the worst I've seen.
"This has been sustained low temperatures for the last four weeks so the ground frost has been getting lower and lower and impacting on more pipes under the ground."
Mr Farrer said the publicly-funded company had drafted in extra resources to deal with the impact of the thaw.
"We are aware that we may be taking longer to answer some calls or respond to appeals for help," he said.
"For this we apologise and thank our customers for their patience as we work to deal with all these issues.
"If we are unsure if this is an internal issue with the household, or an issue with our assets, or both, we then send a field technician out to the customers premises to assist."
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The utility said its staff had taken about 24,000 calls since Christmas Eve.
About 75% of the calls have been from customers with internal pipe problems. The firm said it could give advice in these cases but it was a householder's responsibility to arrange repairs.
Some plumbers have been working 14-hour shifts to try to stem the deluge.
Scottish Water said it was only responsible for maintaining mains pipes.
Its customer services director, Peter Farrer, told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme: "In 26 years in this business this is certainly the worst I've seen.
"This has been sustained low temperatures for the last four weeks so the ground frost has been getting lower and lower and impacting on more pipes under the ground."
Mr Farrer said the publicly-funded company had drafted in extra resources to deal with the impact of the thaw.
"We are aware that we may be taking longer to answer some calls or respond to appeals for help," he said.
"For this we apologise and thank our customers for their patience as we work to deal with all these issues.
"If we are unsure if this is an internal issue with the household, or an issue with our assets, or both, we then send a field technician out to the customers premises to assist."
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