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Doylestown battles holiday weekend water leaks

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As temperatures dropped to record lows last weekend, crews worked on several water main breaks in Doylestown Borough.
On Saturday, a leak emerged on Broad Street, said Phil Ehlinger, the borough’s deputy manager. “It was a slow leak so we decided to schedule the repairs for Tuesday, as Monday was a holiday,” he said, in an email.
Then, on Sunday morning a more significant, 10-inch water main broke on Church Street at Mechanics Street, Ehlinger said. In freezing temperatures, a public works repair team worked until 8 p.m. to repair the rupture, finishing in the snow. Several of the crew then turned their attention to salting the town’s roads.

Yet another leak occurred Sunday on North Chubb Drive, creating a sink hole. “Before we could get to it, a second leak in the Maplewood neighborhood surfaced on Stryker,” said Ehlinger.
Crews will return to the Broad Street leak on Wednesday, he said.
“It’s not the pipes freezing,” said the deputy manager, “but the cold weather causes the ground to shift and as the prolonged cold soaks deeper into the ground, the metal water pipes contract, and sometimes crack and break.”


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