Women of Delta Zeta sorority huddled in blankets and three layers of clothing Saturday and Sunday morning as they made do without heat.

Subzero temperatures in central Iowa have resulted in a rash of water damage to homes, including Delta Zeta, 2138 Sunset Dr., as water pipes and boilers began freezing and then bursting.

The lack of heat was caused by a leak in a radiator in the Delta Zeta president’s room, which caused a water pipe beneath the room to freeze and burst Saturday afternoon.

“We were all sitting in the TV room, and all of the sudden, we heard rushing water. We had no clue what it was,” said Fallon Snelten, member of Delta Zeta and sophomore in hotel, restaurant and institution management.

“Water was just pouring from the window. It was like a water fall.”

Snelten said she and other sorority members ran around grabbing pots, pans and garbage cans.

“Anything we could find to catch the water,” she said.

After shutting off the boiler, the sorority’s house mother, Dixie Stone, said she called Gibbs Plumbing Heating & Cooling, 127 South Bell Ave. Workers had to tear into the ceiling directly below the president’s second-floor room, because baseboards below the room had frozen. Stone said they discovered one of the house’s two pipes that carries hot water from the boiler throughout the house was cold, leaving that room and others in the houses unheated.

A gaping hole revealing exposed pipes and wooden support beams now occupies most of the ceiling by the house’s entryway.

Plumbers had to shut off heat to the house as they worked to bleed the baseboards and cut frozen pipe, Stone said.

“I had to sleep with a sweatshirt, sweat pants, four blankets and a hood pulled over my head,” Snelten said.

“Also, because we didn’t have hot water, me and the other girls had to go to the fraternity across the street or friends’ apartments to shower.”

Megan Clemens, president of Delta Zeta, said she and the rest of the women in the house will have to make do with the hole until spring, when the plumbers can come back during more favorable weather to drain the house’s hot water system again, so they can install new baseboards.

The amount of damage to the house has not been estimated yet, but Clemens and Stone said it should be covered by their sorority’s national organization and insurance.

“Luckily we saw it right away when it happened, otherwise it could have caused a lot more damage,” said Clemens, junior in journalism and mass communication and Daily staff writer.

“Maybe it is a blessing in disguise so national can now see that there is a problem and we need money for our heating system.”

Pi Kappa Phi, 407 Welch Ave., also had a frozen pipe burst Saturday. Evan Smith, the fraternity’s president and junior in finance, said a vent in a member’s room stuck open, causing the pipe to freeze and burst.

Matt Gibbs, assistant operations manager for Gibbs Plumbing Heating & Cooling, said the company received 15 service calls this past weekend for pipe and boiler related problems. Gibbs said the business has been busy all winter, but the number of incidents has been comparable to previous winters.

“It’s gotten so cold for the first time this winter and boilers are doing all they can to keep up with whatever the temperature is set at in a house. But, there’s only so much they can do,” he said.

“No matter if a system is new or old, you’ll still run into problems with the weather being like this.”

However, he said older heating systems in some sorority and fraternity houses contribute to water heating problems. Most sororities and fraternities are upgrading their heating systems to prevent possible damage from burst pipes, Gibbs said.