Water main break

[6t7gto]

Water main broke in front of my wash yesterday.
I shut the wash down for fear of burning up my pumps with no water.
Now that it has been repaired and the water is back on will I have any problems with dirt from the main?
Should I flush the line?
I have a spigot before any equipment is connected.

 

[Waxman]

id flush it out for awhile

 

[Randy]

It’s a little late now, but you should have disconnected the backflow device and flushed out the main service to the car wash. There’s a good chance that you’ll have little rocks and debris in the system. I’d definitely flush out what I can now. Been there and done that more than once.

 

[2Biz]

Depends on how they fixed it.....If they sleeved the main while the water was still on, then you should be good to go. The water spraying out of the break keeps from contaminating the water supply. Then they don't have to issue a boiling water alert. If they had to shut the main off to do the repair, then yes, you could have issues. Do you have a Wye Strainer ahead of the back flow preventer? It may be all you have to clean?

The 6" main broke in front of my wash 2 years ago. I was amazed that they could fix it without shutting the main off. The poor sucker that had to get down in the hole had a rough job! But his effort saved a lot of headaches!

 

[6t7gto]

2biz,
they did shut the main off to do the repair.
I do have a strainer on the backflow preventer.
I will clean that.
Thanks for all the replies.
david

 

[soonermajic]

Crazy, but we had a water main break in front of my wash today, also! Thanks for the advice

 

[mjwalsh]

Crazy, but we had a water main break in front of my wash today, also! Thanks for the advice

Anybody having a laundromat with several hundred strainers for all the water valves on their washers ... need to be extra vigilant when it comes to making sure the water is flushed with a large enough fire hose because dirt & filings can sometimes be very significant. One problem problem we had once or twice ... was the uncertainty of the precise time of when we would actually have water flowing again so we could be ready for the thorough preventative flush before re-opening.

When we had problems with lack of enough flow back in 1987 we were allowed to tap into a newer closer MAIN so that was helpful.

Mike Walsh www.kingkoin.com

 

[Kevin James]

We had a water main break not too long ago, what a mess. We also have a strainer just up team of the back flow, more like a gravel strainer. We pulled the back flow unit and flushed the main service line for well over an hour and for weeks we still got we got sand and small pebbles that could get past the strainer.