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How Denver keeps the water moving in the cold of winter

You could say it's water main break season. Denver Water responds to about 300 water main breaks a year. Many of those happen in the winter months.

Thursday, Denver Water crews responded to the eighth water main break in the first three days of 2019. 

The break was located on South Bellaire Street in the University Hills neighborhood where about 20 homes spent the morning without water.

Denver Water Supervisor Johnny Roybal saw it coming when the New Year’s temperature forecast showed the city 20 to 25 degrees below freezing.

RELATED: Water main break forces overnight closure of stretch of Colorado Boulevard

“We all know it’s going to be busy and we gear up for that,” Roybal said. 

He said it’s not the water in the pipe that freezes, it’s the water around the outside of the pipe and the ground itself the expands, contracts and shifts. All of this eventually takes a toll on older pipes, which in this part of Denver are nearly 70 years old.

Roybal called the Bellaire break an easy repair thanks to warm and sunny skies, and because it was on a small residential street.

"We work very quickly knowing what it's like to be in a home without water," Roybal said. "We like to get our jobs completely done in 4 to 8 hours."

Credit: Denver Water

This easy fix came just one day after one of Denver Water's more difficult jobs. A break under busy Colorado Blvd in very cold air. With temperatures below freezing most of the day, it took more than 24 hours from start to finish.

Denver Water says the cold was a factor, but gave 9NEWS a look at the other issues involved.  

Here's a look at the process it takes to keep the water flowing in the winter months.

  • It starts with a timely report. Denver Water says it's usually a home or business owner that first alerts them to a possible problem.
  • Next, Denver Water dispatches emergency response crews to assess the problem. Once they locate the area of a possible break, water flow to that area is shut down.
  • Before any digging, they must first locate nearby utilities that could be sharing the ground near the water main. Sometimes, like in the case of Wednesday's break on Colorado Boulevard, there can be many other utilities like gas, electric, phone, fiber-optic or sewer.
  • Once all those other utilities are identified and located, crews can dig into the road to investigate the break in the water line.
  • A small break can just be sealed or repaired, but most of the time a section of pipe must be replaced with new pipe.

In Thursday's break on Bellaire Street, there was a hairline fracture on the water main called a split, which was about 7 feet long.

"It was an 6-inch cast iron pipe that was installed in 1951. Most of the water lines in this part of Denver are about that old," Roybal said. 

Roybal said they replaced that section with a new ductile iron pipe and wrapped it in plastic to better help it resist soil corrosion.

Credit: KUSA
Wednesday morning water main break closes Colorado Blvd. near I-25

When the repair is finished, the road must then be refilled and repaved. On small streets like Bellaire, Denver Water is equipped to fix the road themselves, but on major roads like Colorado Boulevard, they said they had to call in a contractor to finish the job. 

Denver Water said the job continues even after the pipes are repaired and the roads are fixed. They also investigate other factors that could be contributing to broken pipes.

Crews will take a soil sample at every pipe break and send it out to their lab to be tested for corrosion. 

"If we get several pipes breaking in the same area and soil tests show corrosion, then we know there may be an issue in a particular area that must be addressed further," Roybal said. 

The break Thursday on Bellaire was not too far from Wednesday's break at Colorado and Buchtel. Roybal said they have more problems in areas with 70 year-old pipes than they do in the downtown area where pipes are from the 1880s. 

"The weather is always a factor, but with something like that, I look closer at the soils," Roybal said. 

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