In the past week, if you’ve heard of any water main breaks in our area interrupting your commute, it’s not a coincidence. The winter weather is actually exacerbating the issue.
The City of Dayton maintains 800 miles of public water connections.
David Shade, who works in field operations for the city’s water department, said Dayton takes an aggressive approach to repairs.
The city aims to replace at least one percent of their pipes each year, he said. But the season might play an important factor into how frequently water main repairs have to be made.
“In the wintertime when it gets in single digits for several days in a row and the ground starts to freeze, we're always going to have some water mains break,” Shade said.
This is happening because the frigid temperatures can change the pressure in the ground. These pressure changes are what can cause breaks.
As of January 19, he reports 18 water main breaks since the start of the year, all of which have been repaired — compared to 15 for the entire month of January last year.
Ron Casey is the Field Services Manager for Montgomery County Environmental Services. He says rapid temperature changes can also increase the risk of water main breaks.
“You have a permanent infrastructure in the ground, and the earth moves with freezing and thawing. And the pipe doesn't move, but the ground shifts,” he explained. “And a lot of times you get what we call a shear break or circumferential break. And that's what I would say is a majority of the breaks that we face during the winter time.”
From January 9 to January 19, the agency reports they’ve had 41 water main breaks across Montgomery County outside of Dayton.
Casey said water main breaks are a fairly normal occurrence depending on the material or age of the pipes.
The county agency finds this isn’t causing any issues in drinking water quality. But it can disrupt business as usual. For example, travel on State Road 49 near the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Dayton was limited early last week due to a water main break.
