Water mains

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OVERKILL

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Over the last week it seems that we've had an epidemic of water main breaks around the city, like one a day (probably not that frequent in reality but it seems like it).

Seems the cold is really wreaking havoc.

Anybody else observing something similar around their area?
 
Nope and abnormally cold around here.

It may just be your area has really old water mains or they were never installed deep enough out of frost line. The ones that break here are close to a 100 year old typically.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Anybody else observing something similar around their area?

Ours have settled down, mostly. Ironically, all of ours, and we had a bunch, were in the summer, thanks to the dryness and the shifting soil.
 
Originally Posted By: madRiver
Nope and abnormally cold around here.

It may just be your area has really old water mains or they were never installed deep enough out of frost line. The ones that break here are close to a 100 year old typically.


That's very typical for lots of cities. Once paved over these pipes were forgotten about until the bust open and cause major problems.
 
Originally Posted By: madRiver
Nope and abnormally cold around here.

It may just be your area has really old water mains or they were never installed deep enough out of frost line. The ones that break here are close to a 100 year old typically.


They've been doing a rolling water main refresh over the last decade roughly and aren't close to done yet, so your observation is correct. I just don't recall this many breaking in the winter before, despite the age
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Originally Posted By: Reddy45
How cold does the water come out of your tap? Just curious.


I lack a thermometer that would work for that purpose, but that's a good question!
 
Originally Posted By: CT8
The tax and fee money is stolen by the politician and government employee crime gang instead of being put into infrastructure repairs.


To some people they are the source of EVERY issue; problem with your narrative is our water company is a publicly traded company.

I suppose it went to money grubbing investors and overpaid CEO's?

I've had two breaks directly in front of my house in the last 10 years. I am on the 'end of a line' (last house) so the line is capped; the leaks were slow, the WC took a few days to patch it even after it was determined a leak had occurred.
 
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Water mains break all the time here in San Diego. Our roads are all torn up also. I live out in the hills and we do a little better than being inside the City limits.
 
Water mains break because they are cast iron and they don't give. Cat iron is brittle. If they bought the more expensive steel, wouldn't have that problem as steel flexes.
 
I have to wonder if it is temperature dependent or what. There was one near where I work in November, but that's the only one Ive recalled in quite a while. We had one on our street a few years back, but it was no big deal.

When it's cold and dry apparently trees go after pipes, just like they do in droughts.
 
Underground pipes, if they are anything like Oz would have been installed in Asbestos Cement...Different Parts of my career I've managed 20 or so miles of above and below ground Asbestos Cement pipes...

The joints (shown below) are typically a muff type coupling, set up so that one end is spigotted, and the other has the ability to be moved through a couple of degrees...typically no bends (when they do, they are thrust blocked), but sweeping long radius curves...imagine stacking lengths of spaghetti end to end and then pressing on the free ends it wants to buckle...the bedding stops it.

asbestos.tif.png


Over the years, the O rings take a set and don't respond well to movement...crud builds up in the gaps, and pressures the O rings if the pipe moves. The crud also pressures the muff coupling and splits them.

So a coupling fails...dig it up, cut the pipe, and put one of these in...
F5.large.jpg


So now there's two more degrees of freedom in the repaired bit, and the whole spaghetti string has to sort itself out again when it's repressurised...there goes the next weakest link.

Every leak that I fixed required at least two more pipe outages to fix the leaks arising after the repair.
 
City gave me a new water main last year (and ruined my driveway, blew a pipe in my house, and cut my underground cable).
With the new ultra cold weather coming, I spent all day insulating the pipes in my house.
 
A few weeks ago here in the Twin Cities we had a water main break under a freeway which resulted in a large sinkhole. The freeway was closed for a week while they made repairs.

 
Infrastructure in the U.S. especially underground pipes is in many cases living on borrowed time. Comparing the cost of initial installation to replacement in today's world. Its a no brainer that replacing will soon become un-affordable. Dark days are coming.
 
In the 1970's a lot of municipalities installed a clay-based sewer pipe in new developments. Although the expected life was something like 60 years, the actual life is more or less random, and not anywhere near 60 years, in cold areas of North America. Apparently the pipe worked well in Texas, not so much in more northerly areas.

Here they install a liner in them; they can run the liner for five miles or so from one location. It's the only permanent fix aside from complete replacement.

Water Main and Sewer Main breaks are more common in winter because, well, they have to be repaired, and the excavation exposes adjacent pipe to sub-freezing temperatures. So, you have a Water Main break, they fix it, but it weakens the Sewer Main (or vice versa), and they have to go in a second time before spring rolls around. It's not unheard of to have to go in a third time during winter.

It's not typically due to being above or at the frost line around here (about 5 feet down). The Sewer Main at my street, which they did a complete replacement on, was 25 feet down (lower than standard but due to the elevations of nearby neighbourhoods it connects to). Of course that led to Water Main breaks so they did a reline on that. Been good since (five years).

My water temperature is around 37F winter and 45F summer, the water line is five feet down and enters an unheated crawlspace. I have heat tape and fibreglass insulation on it, the tape turns on at 38F or lower and off at 40F or higher. Ambient temperatures here can, in extreme cold, dip to just below 40F, but no freezing to my water. The sewer line goes deeper, about 10 feet down from grade.
 
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