The South West town of Barnstable is getting a new sewer system this autumn as South West Water is investing £135,000 replacing 402 metres of sewer pipe.

The sewer replacement scheme is just one part of a £42m investment in the area by the water company. The sewer’s due to be replaced or lined have already been assessed as the most likely to cause problems in the near future.

Work commenced on the 12th of September and is due to be completed mid way through October. The sewers will either be relined or replaced, depending on their condition.

Most of the work on the sewers has been planned to take place at night to avoid problems in the town.
Stephen Cross, the project manager, stated:

“This is a real investment in Barnstaple. Without this necessary work, the sewer network will continue to deteriorate. That can lead to collapses – which cause pollution, flooding and odour.

“We will be working hard to minimise disruption to the public and businesses as far as possible while completing these essential works – including working overnight in the town centre.
In total South West Water maintain over 9,200km of sewer pipes in the region and operate over 630 sewage treatment works.”

The Rhondda Valley, in Wales, is about to get a significant investment in its waste water network after Dwr Cymru Welsh Water announced that they are going to spend over one million pounds in Porth, Treherbert and Ferndale and Maerdy.

The main sewer network is going to be upgraded in each of these towns, with schemes in most areas already underway.

Work started on the 19th of September in Treherbert, replacing the sewer which runs alongside the River Fawr. The work is estimated to be completed at the end of October. The Porth scheme started at the beginning of September and is expected to be completed mid October. The scheme involves excavation on South Street, Ynyshir Road and Railway Terrace.

The work in Ferndale and Maerdy started mid month and is expected to take 30 weeks to complete. It involves excavating the old railway line from Avon Street in Ferndale to Maerdy.

The capital delivery manager for Welsh Water, Martin Kilroy, stated:

“These schemes are part of a £2 million investment programme that will see us completely renew the main sewer serving the Rhondda Valley.

“We’ve written to everyone in the localities of these schemes to explain what we’re going to be doing, and apologise for the inconvenience that construction work inevitably brings. For our part, we’ll do our best to get the job done and get out of the areas with the least possible fuss, and we hope that everyone will bear with us whilst we’re doing this work. The new sewer network will benefit these communities for years to come.”

In the past if a drain was damaged or blocked, the drainage engineers would have to dig up the sewer at sections along its length to try to track down where the point of blockage occurred. This is now no longer the case however, as due to CCTV surveys the need for excavation is greatly reduced.

Using CCTV imaging technology, a team of drainage experts can insert a tiny camera into your drain. The camera can be worked along the drain and images can be fed to the surface in real time. Using this information, the drainage company can find the exact location of the blockage or damage and then make a plan for repair.

Even when a pipe is damaged and the damage location is found, it is usually the case that a repair to the pipe can be carried out in situ so that the excavation is not needed.

A resin coated pipe liner can be inserted into the drain and then inflated at the point of damage. When the resin liner sets, a complete internal repair is instigated and any leak points or breaks in the pipe are resolved.

A drop-in session is being hosted today at the Milford-On-Sea community centre so people can see the improvements that Southern Water are going to make to stop flooding and pollution in the region.
The session will take place between 2pm and 6pm, and members from the Southern Water team will be on hand to answer any questions posed.

There will be around £1.6m spent on improvements in the Hampshire village over the next year or so, most of which will prevent flooding at times of heavy rainfall when the sewers can no longer cope with the amount of water.

The main roads affected by the flooding are Island View gardens and Sea Road. When the work starts, a large water holding tank will be installed in the field alongside Keyhaven Road. This tank will hold the excess rainwater until it is pumped from the tank when the rain passes. It’s hoped that the work will be completed by the spring 2012.

Dennis Taplin, contracts engineer at Southern Water stated:

“We’re committed to reducing the flood and pollution risk in Milton-on-Sea and I’m delighted our regulator Ofwat has given us permission to start work.

“I hope as many people as possible visit our drop-in day to find out about the benefits of the scheme and how it will affect them.”

One of the most common blockages that drain cleaning companies in London find is caused by the infiltration of roots into the pipe network. Roots work there way into the pipe network through the small cracks in the pipe’s structure. And once they find an easy source of water they quickly multiply, blocking the drain.

Root intrusion into a drainage system couldn’t happen if the pipe was not damaged or defective in any way. The pipe needs to be in good working order and have no cracks or disturbance to work effectively all the time.

If a pipe does have cracks, not only does the chance of further damage increase, contamination from the water can enter the surrounding environment. In the worst cases, the water can wash away the soil around the pipe, which can lead to subsidence and further drainage pipe damage.

The drainage engineers in London can usually tell if root intrusion is the cause of a drainage blockage. They can insert a CCTV camera into the drain, which travels along the drain length relaying images to the engineer on the surface. The images can then be used to produce a report on the overall condition of the pipe and hence make the necessary recommendations to solve the drainage problem.