Extreme temps cause pipes to burst

A long green hose snaked around the floor and out the door of the building housing Diana Fashion & Beauty Supply on Noble Street. Employees of Servpro were cleaning up the mess as the tube pumped cold water out the door.

Marketing re presentative Rocky Strait said his restoration company last week handled 15 to 20 messes created by pipes bursting in the extreme cold temperatures. That’s what happened in the supply store building. Dozens of pipes in the county broke or exploded during the last week after a recordbreaking cold spell. Repairs can cost thousands, Strait said.

“It would help if all areas were in a controlled environment, but that’s not going to happen,” he said.

Jim Miller, general manager of the Anniston Water Works and Sewer board, said his department received around 50 customer calls in the last two days asking for help with damaged water lines. Joel Bonds, systems manager for the Jacksonville utility department, said cold weather broke 13 water mains last week, temporarily disrupting service. Wayne Livingston, general manager of the Oxford Water Works, said his department has gotten by with just two breaks and a few customer calls.

But not all pipe malfunctions are the same, according to Luke Whittle, president and chief executive of Ultraliner Inc. His company manufactures a liner to repair pipes without digging them up. He said the biggest seasons for pipes bursting are summer and winter.

“Think of the logic of that : why?” Whittle said. “It’s not necessarily that it freezes. It’s the ground. The soil is what causes it.

“In the winter, the soil gets frozen so far it puts stress on the pipe and breaks the pipe. It’s the same thing in the summer when the soil gets hot and dries out. It makes the pipe break.”

Work crews in Anniston repaired a pipe buried deep underground off U.S. 431 near the House of Chen restaurant Monday. Water maintenance supervisor Rodney Lowe said it broke Sunday night.

Most pipes in cities are buried far below the frost line, Whittle said. Pipes in private residences are a different story, according to Whittle and Miller.

“A lot of times private ones do freeze because they’re not as deep,” Miller said. “They’re exposed to the elements.”

Whittle said homeowners can leave a trickle of water running, but he called that wasteful and costly in the long run. The cheaper way would be to insulate exposed pipes, he said. People can also turn the valves off, he said.

“A house is a totally different thing,” he said. “If they’ve got a pipe that’s exposed, it’s going to freeze and burst because water expands when it freezes.”