Water Department

Upcoming Projects

Automated Reading Program

The City of Kendallville has begun another phase in improving customer service delivery to each water customer through our Automated Meter Reading (AMR) Program. In the early part of 2006, the City will begin installing an AMR system. The new water meters will be equipped with radio transmitting devices that will enable us to read your meter from a vehicle equipped to receive and store the reading. The new system will allow the City to provide timely and accurate responses to your water meter reading inquiries. Soon, we will be in your neighborhood to install your free new meter with an automated reading device or retrofit your existing meter. There will be no cost for installation of this equipment. Over the next two years, every home and business in Kendallville will be upgraded with the new AMR system.

The City of Kendallville is constantly looking for ways to improve service to our customers.  The benefits of an automatic meter reading system include:

1.      Increase productivity and reduced future meter reading costs

2.      Eliminate manual meter reading thus providing accurate usage reports and ensuring accurate bills

3.      Provide efficiencies in the billing which will allow for improved customer service initiatives

4.      High usage detection, alert the Water Department to unusual water usage  

5.      Increase revenues with more accurate and timely billing

6.      Immediately provide new water meters or retrofits for approximately 3,600 of our customers

7.      Minimizes the need for anyone to regularly access your property to read your water meter (the City will still need to access your water meter to repair or replace)

8.      Reduce painful and expensive injuries associated with manual reading such as slipping, falling, dog bites, bee stings and back strains.

The City Water Department will install the radio read system in house. This will save the Water Department thousands of dollars to keep expenses down which always translates to less frequent rate increases.  These installers will be required to display a photo ID. They will be driving clearly marked vehicles. The average installation time is about 30 minutes or less. A service technician will replace or upgrade your old water meter, then connect the new/upgraded meter to a radio-transmitting device.

While in your home, the installer will check the age and condition of your current meter. If it is near or older than 10 years old, the meter will be replaced. They will also listen to your water line for leaks. An inside leak can raise your water bill while an outside leak can damage your foundation. Any leaks found will be reported to the home owner. 

If you have any questions about this project, contact us or view our frequently asked questions document.

Hydrant Replacement

You may be noticing a lot of holes in the roads as of late. The Street Department and the Engineering Department are gearing up for some road improvements. When they do this, we have to jump out ahead of them and change any fire hydrants that may be getting too old. Some of these old hydrants have no valves, making the change very difficult. We have learned how to stop the water ourselves with a machine called a “Hydro-Stop”. It is quite a process to see and is very expensive to have done. We are thankful to have men who are willing to learn so that we can keep the cost down while keeping fire protection good in Kendallville.

We apologize for any inconvenience cause by these upgrades. We hope the repairs will be fast and leave the City with better fire protection with each project.

Drake Road Loop

Another exciting improvement is coming to the Kendallville Water System this year. This project is referred to as the “Drake Road Loop”.

“Looping” water lines simply means to feed an area from at least two different directions. There are many benefits to doing this. One benefit is to increase the pressure of that area. Another benefit is to protect the area from water loss in the event of a main water line break.

The water main that feeds the western part of Kendallville is not currently looped. This area encompasses most of the new growth to the west and extends cross country to the Orchard projects, the new Hospital and eventually ends at Cobblestone. When a main line breaks anywhere west of State Road 3 North, all the properties to the north and west loose nearly all their pressure and flow.

This new planned 12 inch line will extend from Highpoint Crossing to Cobblestone by way of Drake Road, creating a large circle or “loop”. This will feed the western part of Kendallville a second way, allowing uninterrupted water flow even in the event of a main break.

We are very excited to extend this approximate two mile section of water main. Anyone living near this new section of water main will have the option of connecting to city water. This is at the owner’s choice and expense. For a list of bonded contractors qualified to make these connections, contact the Clerk’s Office. Some minimal connection fees and permits are required.

We apologize in advance for the periodic inconvenience that comes with any project near the road. There will be short periods of traffic interruption. This will be kept to a minimum since the water main will be installed approximately 10 feet to the north of the road edge. If you live in this area and have landscaping in the right of way, it will need to be moved before the contractors get to it. It can be replanted after the water main is installed as long as it doesn’t create a safety hazard. We appreciate your patients and cooperation in these matters.

If you have any questions about this or any project, please leave a message with our Clerk’s Office and we will contact you. You may also contact us through the email address listed on this sight.

Krueger Street Water Tower

You may notice some work being done on the Krueger Street Water Tower. This tower holds 500,000 gallons of water and helps to maintain pressure and flow to the citizens and businesses of Kendallville.

Proper maintenance is required to extend the life of a water tower. A tower of this size values somewhere near 800,000 dollars! To protect it, we have it cleaned and inspected every other year and follow the recommendations of our inspectors when it comes to paint and repair. Our inspectors have been recommending a paint job for several years and we have now started the process.

This requires the tower to be empty. The tower was drained on June 7, 2006 and will remain out of service until the project is finished. The painters tell us this will take nearly two months.

In this time, they will blast the inside with media and remove all of the old paint. The next step will to test the thickness and integrity of the tank and make any necessary repairs. After this is done, they will apply the primers and paints designed and approved for water storage.

The outside of the tower will be pressure washed and inspected for paint failure areas. These areas will be stripped and repaired. The next step will be to primer and paint the outside with approved paint. Finally, the lettering can be reapplied to the tank.

You will notice a new color and font on this job. The color will be light gray and the font color will be a dark red similar to burgundy. The font and color will match the welcome sign on South Main Street near Kraft Foods.

To keep the job moving along with quality, we have hired an independent inspector who will climb the tank and approve each stage of the job before allowing the painters to proceed to the next step. These are the same painters and inspector who did our last tower painting projects 15 years ago. We were very pleased with the work they did then and the paint job lasted longer than expected.

While this tower is down, you may notice some pressure fluctuation, especially at the western side of Kendallville. The Marion Street water tower is still in service at the East Factory Sight. We are keeping this tower as full as we can and are running our pumps as strategically as possible to maintain good water pressure.

There is an increased risk of main breaks during a tower project. Water towers act as large shock absorbers and when one is empty, we must be cautious. You may have noticed “pressure release valves” attached to several fire hydrants in town. They are designed to let the water blow out of the device when a surge is sensed in the water main. The men at the water department installed additional fire hydrants in the troubled areas to allow these devices to be mounted in high surge areas. They work well, yet sometimes a surge will find a weak spot in the water main and break it before the valve can work. We apologize for any inconvenience these breaks cause. They are very difficult to repair at times.

During this project, we would greatly appreciate it if you could water your lawns and fill your swimming pools during low usage periods. Late night hours are the best time for these chores.

We will try to keep you updated on two other projects of a similar nature. One will be the rehabilitation of the Marion Street Water Tower, and the other will be a new water tower to be installed on Drake Road.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave us a message at the Clerk’s Office and we will contact you. You may also contact us through the email address listed on this sight.

Telemetry

Another improvement taking place at the Water Department is the telemetry system. This improvement is not as visible as some of the others, but is essential in the operation of the water system.

The telemetry is the veins and arteries of the water system. It allows the wells, towers, valves, booster stations and satellite plants to communicate with the main water plant. It tells the wells when they are needed to fill the detention tank. It allows the towers to tell the water plant when they need more water. It gives the operators the information they need to decide when pumps are ready for maintenance. It controls chemical feeds, valves, reports flows, pressures, levels and provides many other kinds of information that keep the water flowing and sends alarms whenever something is not right. If no one is around to respond to the alarms, the system begins paging different people until the alarm is addressed.

The new system will also have security alarms built in to inform us if anyone tries to tamper with our water system.

Our current system uses underground wires. The wires are very old and have been broken many times due to excavation throughout the years. These splices can send false alarms when the ground is wet or cold. Some of our wells have lost all communication with the plant, requiring the operators to drive to them whenever they are required to run or shut off. This is very time consuming and takes them away from more important work.

Fortunately, the telemetry project will put an end to these problems. The new system will run on radio frequency. The radios are very simple and require no underground wiring. If one would fail, the plant would alarm and prompt the operator to check it out. If the radio needs repair, a spare can be installed in seconds and the problem can be taken care of while the facility stays in service.

If operators were to manually do what telemetry does, they would have no time for testing, maintenance and daily problem solving. A good telemetry system allows us to keep our treatment team small. The failures in the old system have taken time away from the operators. There is far too much maintenance that can be done “in house” at a great savings when the telemetry keeps the system running automatically

We are very anxious to see these repairs and upgrades. With the planned Drake Road Tower, Marion Street Booster Stations, Rogers Road Plant, Pressure Zone Valves and Drake Road Plant Upgrades, it is good to know that the communication system will be upgraded and ready to take control of these improvements.

As always, we will design the capability of manual operation and overrides to allow the operators to control any part of the system manually in the case of any system failures. If you have any questions about this or any other improvement, leave a message with the Clerk’s Office and we will contact you. You may also contact us through the email address listed on this sight.

Well 13 at Drake Road Plant

This well has been named and planned for 15 years. We are excited to see that it will soon be a reality.

Well 13 will be located at the Drake Road Water Plant. Well # 12 currently supplies this water plant. The State requires that every water plant have at least two sources. They will not recognize the capacity of the Drake Road Plant until a second source is in place.

By having two wells at the Drake Road Plant, we will be able to run this plant more often. To protect a well, the run times must be limited. With only one well at the Drake Road Plant, we have had to budget how often we run this plant. After Well 13 is in service, we can take some pressure off of the Diamond Street Plant, which is very old and overworked. It will also allow us to take this plant down for an upgrade next year.

The Drake Road Plant is equipped with a generator. With this generator and a second well, this plant could nearly always keep up with Kendallville’s water demand. This would allow us to keep water flowing in times of extended power outages associated with emergencies like tornadoes or mass power outages. It is not good to run a plant this hard always, but the capacity will be there if needed.

The first activity you should see is the drilling of the test well. The well drillers will drill a nearly 400 foot deep, 6 inch diameter well and collect data. This will tell them, among other things, what kind of casing, screen, pump and drilling machine will be required to drill the production well. The production well will most likely be a 16 inch well with a ten inch diameter, multi stage pump.

When all is designed, bid and installed, you should see a small building constructed to house this valuable investment. This new well will then be piped to the Drake Road plant. The plant will require some minor changes to receive Well 13. After this, we can begin utilizing the Drake Road Plant in the way it was designed.

If you have any questions about this or any other project, call the Clerk’s Office and leave a message and we will contact you. You may also contact us through the email address listed on this sight.

Return to top