New Water Connection

[John Smith Esq.]

Hi all,

I'm getting 32mm plastic pipe moled under my drove by around 20m from the water meter to my house to improve flow. The guy who is going to do it is very knowledgeable. He actually works for a gas company in Yorkshire, but does water pipes and such on the side. Said he can do it for about 1200, which would include stop cock inside and connection at the meter. He said companies would charge a lot more. When I asked about involving the water company he said not to worry about it or bother telling them. He would be digging some tarmac up in the footpath in front of my drive in order to connect the water co's 25mm plastic pipe to my new one and then making good. The water company won't know it has been done from the meter inspection chamber. To be fair, when I recently had them out they didn't know if my pipes have been upgraded or not, apart from noting that the tarmac and my drive have been patched before but said there could be different reasons for that, like fixing leaks.

Thoughts? Would you?

 

[bernardgreen]

The local council should be informed before digging up tarmac in the footpath.

Is this guy insured to do this work "on the side ", ?

 

[ree]

OP,
Why not post a pic showing from the external water meter to your house?
FWIW: Its a simple matter to tell what kind of pipe you have.

 

[mikeey84]

It cost me about £800 10 years ago, so the price is ok.

When I had it done, he managed to dig the hole next to pavement, and could reach the meter connection and do the join. He didn't have to dig the pavement up.

I didn't mind, as he had the right qualification or registration, which I think is required to do that bit. Water safe I think it is called

 

[NorthWest1]

As far I know it's illegal to connect to a water meter. If you do make sure you leave no leaks and the flag goes back level or there could be trouble.
Most water companies offer a grant and free connection to upgrade from lead as they're desperate to get rid of lead pipework. Only caveat is that it has to be done to latest regs, depending on your layout that may be easy or difficult.
Water safe registered companies can self certify their own work but still can't connect to the meter.

 

[noseall]

Hi all,

I'm getting 32mm plastic pipe moled under my drove by around 20m from the water meter to my house to improve flow. The guy who is going to do it is very knowledgeable. He actually works for a gas company in Yorkshire, but does water pipes and such on the side. Said he can do it for about 1200, which would include stop cock inside and connection at the meter. He said companies would charge a lot more. When I asked about involving the water company he said not to worry about it or bother telling them. He would be digging some tarmac up in the footpath in front of my drive in order to connect the water co's 25mm plastic pipe to my new one and then making good. The water company won't know it has been done from the meter inspection chamber. To be fair, when I recently had them out they didn't know if my pipes have been upgraded or not, apart from noting that the tarmac and my drive have been patched before but said there could be different reasons for that, like fixing leaks.

Thoughts? Would you?

Sounds ok to me. He's working on the domestic side so all is good. We have had mixed results regards improvements to flow in the past though. Don't get too excited.

 

[John Smith Esq.]

Thanks for the replies.

So the new pipe on the driveway side will connect into the pipe that comes off the meter. He won't be directly connecting it into the meter itself. The meter is within the footpath and is about 2 feet from the threshold of the driveway with footpath in between. This footpath has already been patched before fir some reason, possibly a leak. He will dig up part of the footpath, a small amount, in order to connect to the existing plastic pipe that goes from the meter towards my driveway. He does this sort of thing for his job so it will all be professionally done.

It should improve the flow of water in my case because the pressure in the house has been shown to be good (2.6bar), it is the flow that is poor, and yet, at the meter, the flow is very good - 23L/min. In my house it is more like 7.5L/m. Most likely, the existing 15mm copper pipe under the drive has a load of limescale in it as well.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I would tell him to just get on with it. Councils make life very expensive and difficult, they usually charge about £300 per sheet of paper. They might want a full health and safety assessment, temporary traffic lights and a courtesy helicopter provided for anyone who needs to walk past.

What they don't know won't hurt them. You know it's all being done right.

Take photos during the process, just in case anything comes back to bite. Make sure everyone is wearing hi-vis to make it look official. Put a couple of cones around any hole in the pavement. Hopefully common sense isn't yet illegal.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

My biggest (and probably only worry) would be, is he insured. Moling is not without its risks, if the Mole goes off line and damages another service or sewer, or even goes AWOL and he needs to start digging up Neighbouring Properties looking for it, who is going to cover the cost of that?

 

[Exedon]

My biggest (and probably only worry) would be, is he insured. Moling is not without its risks, if the Mole goes off line and damages another service or sewer, or even goes AWOL and he needs to start digging up Neighbouring Properties looking for it, who is going to cover the cost of that?

Agreed we did a fair bit of replacement service work at one point. Used a subie to do moleing they hit a buried road kerb on one job mole eventually appeared through a printed concrete drive!.
I know for certain both water suppliers in this area take a fairly dim view of not informing them.
Guy up road from me (actually a retired plumber) had to dig a series of test holes to prove service depth.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Used a subie to do moleing they hit a buried road kerb on one job mole eventually appeared through a printed concrete drive!.

I know of an incident a few years back in Corby, Northants, when a Contractor working for Anglian Water had a Mole go awry. It smashed through a live water main, closely followed by a nearby gas main, and I think by the time they realised something had gone wrong, water had flooded the majority of the Town's gas network. People in the lower areas of the Town had water coming out of fires and cookers.

It took weeks to get all the water out the Gas network, every property in the affected areas had to be visited, checked and the Gas supply restored. The compensation bill was huge, the Contractor, (unsurprisingly) went into Liquidation shortly afterwards.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

There are online services where you can get maps of underground services for a small fee. They're usually pretty vague but at least try and reduce the risks.