Winter hits hydrants hard

(Updated) This past winter has been a costly one for Hamilton – especially the city’s water department.

150 fire hydrants are out of commission right now due to cold weather damage – 4 times as many as in the aftermath of a typical winter.

The director of the water department, Dan McKinnon says “we haven’t seen this kind of damage in probably a few decades.”

“For the frost to be able to penetrate that far into the ground and affect the hydrants in that way is very unusual.”

Hamilton’s average temperature this past season was the lowest it’s been in over 55 years: nearly minus seven degrees celsius. When the ground freezes it pushes the hydrant up, creating a break in the valve. So instead of flowing up the hydrant, the water leaks out.

Luckily, hydrants are spaced less than 150 metres apart. Claudio Mostacci of Hamilton Fire says that means fire crews can work around the outages.

“Fire fighting at a house fire or any building fire will not be affected because we can start the initial fighting with on-board water supply.”

They keep a database of damaged hydrants, and can run hose to the next one over.

The outages may not be dangerous, but they’re certainly costly. An average fix costs between $3 and 5,000.

Combined with water main breaks, and other freezing issues, McKinnon says hydrant damage blew through Hamilton water’s entire yearly budget by the end of february. “We will be looking to draw from our reserves this year because we’ve basically spent our whole budget for the year.”

The department won’t know until May — when the ground is fully thawed — just how many repairs are needed.