Belmont County, Ohio · St. Clairsville
Water spreading, a burst pipe, sewage, mold or smoke? Call to be connected with a restoration company that serves Martins Ferry, St. Clairsville and Barnesville. Start the steps below while you wait.
Answered 24/7 by a participating local provider. We're a referral service and don't do the work ourselves. How it works
Start here
Pick the closest match. These steps limit the damage and protect your insurance claim. Skip anything that isn't safe.
With 46% of homes built before 1960 and about 30 hard-freeze nights a year, frozen and split pipes are a leading winter risk in the county.
June brings the most downpours to Belmont County, part of 6.5 heavy-rain days a year. Check the sump first.
46% of homes here predate 1960, when clay and cast iron sewer laterals were standard. Roots and cracks in those lines are a common cause of backups.
In Belmont County, 3.52 inches fell on the wettest day of the 2015–2024 record. Storms like that, and ice dams in snowy winters, cause most roof leaks.
13% of occupied homes in Belmont County heat mainly with wood or propane, below the Ohio county median of 15.9%.
With 28 muggy nights a year, mold in Belmont County can appear within days of a leak. Dry first, then clean.
Local risk profile
Belmont County covers 532 square miles of eastern Ohio, with about 65,473 residents and 31,522 homes. St. Clairsville is the county seat; Martins Ferry, Barnesville and Bellaire are the next largest communities. The county's median home was built in 1965.
58/100 Water Damage Risk Index: Elevated Belmont County ranks 24 of 88 Ohio counties. See the statewide ranking and method.The three factors where Belmont County ranks highest compared with other Ohio counties.
For frozen pipes, Belmont County is a typical Ohio county, which is still plenty. It averaged 113 freezing nights a year over 2015–2024, 30 of them at 20°F or colder, cold enough for pipes in outside walls and crawl spaces to freeze. Among 88 Ohio counties that's 49th.
The longest cold spell was straight 13 days without the temperature rising above freezing, ending in January 2018. The coldest night reached about -8°F on February 20, 2015. Burst pipes usually show up when a spell like that breaks and the ice thaws.
The freeze season here runs November to March, with January the coldest. If you travel then, leave the thermostat at 55°F or above and open sink cabinets on outside walls.
On average the first fall freeze arrives around Oct 27 and the last spring freeze around Apr 25.
Heavy rain is a bigger factor here than in most of Ohio. About 6.5 days a year bring an inch or more (27th of 88), most often in June, out of 46.3 inches of total precipitation. On September 10, 2018, 3.52 inches fell in a single day. Multi-day storms matter most for basements; the wettest three days on record here totaled 5.76 inches (through September 11, 2018).
Freeze-thaw days, below freezing overnight and above it by afternoon, come about 91 times a year here. They're the main driver of ice dams and of water working its way through foundation cracks in late winter.
Housing
71% of homes in Belmont County predate 1980, above the Ohio county median of 61.1%, which ranks 19th of Ohio's 88 counties.
46% were built before 1960. Homes from that era often still have galvanized steel supply pipe, which rusts from the inside until it pinholes, and cast iron drains that crack with age. Slow leaks behind walls are a common start to water damage in these houses.
The Census counted 14% of homes as vacant, above the Ohio county median of 8.4%. Empty houses are where a small leak turns into a large claim, because nobody is there to hear it.
Beyond water
About 28 nights a year in Belmont County stay at 65°F or warmer, a sign of muggy summer air (71st of 88 counties). June is the wettest month. Keep indoor humidity under 60%, as the EPA advises, and dry any leak within 24 to 48 hours; in a humid month a wet basement left alone won't dry by itself.
Mold remediation: what to expectBy main heating fuel, Belmont County homes break down as 47% utility gas, 30% electric, 10% propane and 3% wood. Fires here are likelier to start in the kitchen or the wiring than in the furnace. After any fire, keep the HVAC off until ducts are checked, or soot will travel through the house.
Fire and smoke cleanup: first stepsCoverage
Calls connect to restoration companies that work across Belmont County. The largest communities by population:
Population from ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates. Townships and unincorporated areas are covered too.
Nearby
Guernsey and Harrison get more pipe-freeze nights than Belmont. Jefferson County has the oldest housing nearby, with 80% of homes built before 1980.
By the numbers
| Factor | Belmont | Ohio median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homes built before 1960 | 46% | 37% | 16 of 88 |
| Homes built before 1980 | 71% | 61% | 19 of 88 |
| Homes built 2000 or later | 13% | 17% | 62 of 88 |
| Manufactured or mobile homes | 6.3% | 5.9% | 38 of 88 |
| Vacant homes | 14% | 8.4% | 14 of 88 |
| Wood or propane heat | 13% | 16% | 52 of 88 |
| Nights at 20°F or colder | 30/yr | 31/yr | 49 of 88 |
| Days with 1 inch+ of rain | 6.5/yr | 5.7/yr | 27 of 88 |
| Freeze-thaw days | 91/yr | 82/yr | 3 of 88 |
| Muggy nights (65°F+) | 28/yr | 35/yr | 71 of 88 |
Rank 1 is the highest value. Bars run from the lowest to the highest Ohio county; the tick marks the median; orange means higher water damage risk than the median, green means lower.
Questions
Peak risk months in Belmont County: freezing from November to March, heavy rain in February, June and September.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 5-year estimates (2020-2024); weather from NOAA nClimGrid-Daily county averages (EpiNOAA), 2015–2024, averaged across the county; county boundaries from Census TIGER. Reviewed 2026-10-21. Methodology