Water main breaks continue to plague area

A break on School Street in the Penn Daw area Monday morning. (Photo courtesy of Scott Michaud)

It’s expected to get above freezing today for the first time in days, but water main breaks and frozen pipes continue to be a major problem throughout the area.

As of 10:25 a.m. this morning, there were 24 active water main breaks around Fairfax County, according to Fairfax Water. At least eight of those breaks are in the Richmond Highway area. 

The Groveton/Bucknell area has dealt with a number of breaks during the cold snap, and currently has five being repaired or waiting on repairs. More than 70 houses in that area are without water. That number could be much higher, as Fairfax Water has not listed the number of houses affected by two of the breaks.

Water main breaks in the Richmond Highway area as of 10:15 a.m. Monday morning.

Another break occurred last night int he Penn Daw area, near the intersection of School Street and North Kings Highway. That incident left about 40 customers without water, according to Fairfax Water. 

Another break on Ashton Street in the Buckman Road area has about 20 customers without water.

In addition to the water main breaks, numerous Fairfax Water customers have reported frozen pipes and water meters. Fairfax Water does not list the amount of calls they’ve received for such problems, but they did tweet that their technicians made more than 1,600 service visits on Sunday alone. 

On Sunday alone we made 1,625 service visits, answered 3,136 calls and over 400 emails. If you have already contacted us for a technician visit, please be patient – we will get to you as soon as possible. Thank you and we greatly appreciate your patience! pic.twitter.com/hbg6XCzlyo

— Fairfax Water (@fairfax_water) January 8, 2018

Fairfax Water recommends that customers keep a faucet dripping in their homes whenever water is not in use in order to keep pipes from freezing.

You can report and track water main breaks on Fairfax Water’s website.