Crews hired by the Vectren Corp. are back at work in the Dayton area replacing miles of below-ground natural gas pipeline, updating individual customer services and relocating indoor meters to the outside as part of a project that will total $48 million in Ohio and Indiana in 2013, jumping to $72 million during 2014.

Ritter Plumbing & Pipeline of Dayton, Miller Pipeline Corp. of Tipp City and the Fishel Co. of Dublin are all adding workers after being awarded portions of the contract in the Dayton area.

“It’s huge for us,” said Jim Wilson, area manager for Miller.

“We’ll add 30 workers and probably have 100 people working on this. It will mean a 40 percent to 60 percent upswing in our workload. Hopefully, if we do it right, it will mean a boost in profitability,” Wilson said.

Miller employees began several weeks of work in late January along South Main Street in Dayton and on intersecting streets to the east. Later, they will install four miles of new gas mains and 335 services in Oakwood.

Colleen Ryan, president of Vectren Energy Delivery of Ohio, said projects in Eaton, Greenville and West Milton also will be among 16 in Ohio cities this year.

Since 2009 in Dayton, Ryan said 45.6 miles of main and 5,676 services have been replaced, with 18.34 more miles and 2,291 services planned this year.

Residents in affected areas will be contacted before work begins, which will be after the end of the school year in Oakwood, at the request of city officials.

Also due to regulations in the federal Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002, Duke Energy plans to replace nearly 1,200 miles in Ohio by the end of 2015. Vectren began replacing gas mains across its service area in 2009.

The Evansville, Ind.-based company decided to accelerate renovation because new piping and systems have meant savings.

Ryan said Vectren has realized a 60 percent reduction in repair and service-call costs in Marion, Ind., and 40 percent in Anderson, Ind., two of the first cities completed.

“We are prioritizing replacement based on the condition of the infrastructure. We are doing this in older neighborhoods and we are being proactive with local communities about timing,” she said.

Many homes in the Dayton neighborhood west of Brown Street, where tractors, drillers and vacuum truck crews caused closure of a northbound lane of Ohio 48 on Tuesday, were built in the 1920s and ’30s. Bare-steel and cast-iron mains and individual service lines there will be replaced with polyethelene piping.

Meters located inside homes and businesses in those locations will be moved outdoors. “That improves safety and efficiency,” Ryan said. “If an incident occurred where we had to shut the gas off now, we would need to get into people’s houses to do that.”

The new lines also allow natural gas to be provided under higher pressure, “which enables future development.”

New pipes will be installed using directional horizontal boring, a “steerable” method that allows minimal impact to the surrounding area.

The old pipe will not be removed. “It is simply retired in place,” Ryan said. “We’re avoiding digging anything up. We prefer to go between the street and the sidewalk in a grassy area wherever we can.”

When work begins on services to individual homes and businesses, crews will briefly turn off the gas. “Once the meter is moved and installed outside, we will come back in and re-light the pilot,” Ryan said.

For more information, contact Vectren Customer Service at (800) 227-1376 or go to www.vectren.com/pipelinereplacement.