Preparing Your System for Winter

Preparing Your System for Winter Tony Wyatt | West TN Field Supervisor Tennessee Association of Utility Districts T hese days the leaves are starting to fall, the late afternoon air has a chill in it more often than not, and the grass finally doesn’t need mowing every week. All of these are signs of one thing. No, I don’t mean that “It’s football time in Tennessee” or that hunting season has finally arrived. These are all signs that winter is just around the corner and you should be preparing your utility ready for the cold weather ahead. Winter can mean a slowdown from the fast pace of warm weather months for many utilities- a time to perform routine maintenance that you never seemed to have time for during the summer. But if your utility isn’t prepared for the falling temperatures, it can mean long miserable hours trying to keep your water system operating and your customers in water. So what can you do now to insure that your utility is ready for the colder months ahead? All water systems are required to maintain a flushing program. What denotes a good flushing program and the frequency of flushing needed varies from system to system. Your program should be adequate to maintain a clean supply of water with a good free chlorine residual to all of your customers. With most water systems, flushing the entire distribution system twice per year is a good starting point. Fall is a good time to conduct a systematic flushing of your entire distribution system. There are several advantages to flushing at this time of year: • Flushing before cold weather arrives may prevent the need for line flushing during the dead of winter. Winter flushing can be miserable for utility workers and hazardous for others. Water flushed onto roads can freeze causing dangerous driving conditions. • Flushing will allow your personnel to inspect fire hydrants before freezing weather arrives. Leaking hydrants may fail during cold weather. Water leaking from weep holes in these hydrants can also loosen the ground around the hydrant allowing it to move and possibly blow off. • Hydrants should also be checked for proper operation of the weep holes. Weep holes should allow 5 oz. per minute of drainage from the hydrant barrel. Weep holes that are plugged will cause the hydrant barrel to remain full of water. Freezing temperatures can then damage the hydrant or the frozen hydrant may not operate if needed during a fire. Weep holes can be checked by holding your hand over the hydrant nozzle after flushing. Listen for air rushing in around your hand as water is drained from the barrel. Plugged weep holes can sometimes be cleared by opening the hydrant a few rounds with the nozzle caps installed. If this doesn’t work, the hydrant may need to be dug around and the weep holes manually cleaned. • Any missing hydrant nozzle caps should be replaced. • Blow-offs should be inspected to insure that they are protected from freezing. Fall is also a good time to check on water lines that have had problems during past winters. If lines run under or near drainage ditches, check to make sure that cover has not been washed away exposing the line. Thirty (30) inches of cover is normally sufficient to protect water lines in Tennessee. Remember that lines under gravel roads and driveways may need even more cover.

Insulation should be checked on lines that must be left exposed to the elements, such as raw water lines running from wells or intakes or lines suspended from bridges. Small lines connecting tanks to controls, as well as the control boxes themselves, should be checked to ensure that heaters or heat tape is operating properly.

Meter readers should also be especially observant during this time. Broken meter box lids should be replaced. Dirt that may have washed away from boxes should be replaced. Any service lines found leaking should be repaired before bad weather arrives.

Extremely cold weather for extended periods of time can still cause problems for the best prepared utilities. There are certain measures, that you and your customers can take during these colds spells to avoid problems, such as: • Placing straw on top of meter boxes can help insulate shallow meters or those exposed to north winds. After the temperature rises, the straw can be scattered in the yard so that it doesn’t have to be hauled away. • Utility newsletters can be used to remind customers to prepare for winter. Under house vents should be closed. Outside faucets and exposed piping should be insulated. Remember that hoses left attached to frost proof hydrants will not allow them to drain properly. You should also warn customers of the dangers of using space heaters to thaw plumbing under houses. • Fall is also a good time to remind customers to prepare backflow preventers for falling temperatures. Reduced pressure backflow preventers (RPBPs) on irrigation systems should be well insulated or removed if the system is not to be used during winter months. Hose bibb vacuum breakers should be drained after each use if possible. If a customer has a hose bibb vacuum breaker that cannot be drained, it should be removed to allow the faucet to drain to prevent freezing. No backflow prevention device should be removed if the line or hydrant that it protects will be used during the winter. Don’t forget to check next spring to be sure any devices removed during cold weather have been reinstalled. Now is also a good time to inspect and test any backflow prevention devices owned by the utility. • It seems that the first thing a customer with no water wants to do is to remove the meter box lid and leave it off. This will ultimately lead to a frozen meter when most of the time the original problem was with the customers plumbing. Use your utility newsletter or an ad in the local paper to caution customers about this practice. • Use the local media during cold periods to advise customers to leave cabinet doors open to allow warm air to circulate under sinks. Customers may also need to allow a small amount of water to flow from faucets during very cold weather.

While it is never possible to foresee every problem that cold weather may cause, a little preparation now can save a lot of work later. Remember “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Or in the case of a water system, “a few hours work now can be worth a lot of miserable hours and thousands of gallons later”.