As we continue to experience the deep freeze throughout the winter of 2018, we continue to get calls from customers who are experiencing cracked water mains.
In many cases the water main or water main valves have cracked inside the basement which was not heated or insulated. Due to the extreme weather conditions which we have not experienced in several years, many homeowners are experiencing conditions outside of the norm throughout their homes. The most common report is that the water main valve had cracked and had a stream of water spraying throughout the basement.
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Water Main Valve Cracked & Leaking |
In other scenarios the customer was not as lucky and not only had the water main cracked inside the building, it had completely severed from the rest of the house piping and was flooding the basement.
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In this scenario the water main was made of lead which is illegal to repair. Even if the damage is on the inside of the house only, the entire water main was required to be replaced from the city main, to inside the building.
The process began with an excavation in the roadway over the city main, once the city main connection had been located, the crew could close the connection (AKA tap connection) and stop the basement from flooding.
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AS per standard water main installation protocol, the crew began making water main tunnels which the new copper tubing would be installed.
Copper water line tunnel |
Once the copper tubing is installed from the street, the new pipe is installed through/under the foundation wall and re-connected back to the house piping.
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