Townley Road 42" water main burst

[James Barber]

Told a few minutes ago that 42" Thames Water mains has burst on Townley Road. That Townley Road is totally closed between Dovercourt Road and Calton Avenue.

The repairs is estimated to be complete by Monday 2 November.

Please avoid that area.

[DulwichFox]

How does a 42" water main 'Burst..' ??

I mean, it's not Winter and Townley road not subjected to Heavy Traffic.

Sounds like road works.. anyone working there at the moment. ?

DulwichFox.

[mikeb]

I saw some Thames Water guys last night about 10pm

I'm reminded of this post.

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,943907,944058#msg-944058

[James Barber]

Most of our gas and water mains were installed in Victorian times. A significant amount of patching and temporary fixes were made during WWII to keep thing going.

Fortunately no one flooded.

[Penguin68]

Most of our gas and water mains were installed in Victorian times

That's (mainly) true of water (and sewage), but many gas mains locally post date this - in my house (c1912) work in the front discovered old (disconnected) gas installations which had later been replaced (these were contaminated and had to be removed by a specialist team) - so the gas installations in my part of ED are certainly post Victorian (as the ones actually replaced were Edwardian). Much ED building work and infrastructure post-dates the Victorian building boom and supporting infrastructure will as well. And there has been considerable remedial and replacement work since WWII. The amount of Victorian infrastructure remaining original in ED will now be very small (outwith 'feeder' links from houses into the mains).

[James Barber]

Hi P68,

I'm sure you're correct and I should have said Victorian or Edwardian. Either way a century old +/- a decade.

[edhistory]

I'd like to know which pre-1914 water supply or gas mains are still in use.

[Penguin68]

Sorry to be boring about this, but from https://www.ucl.ac.uk/energy-models/models/uk-markal/dodds-_-mcdowall-2013-future-gas-networks--energy-policy) it would suggest that most of the current gas infrastructure is far less than 100 or so years old - with the estimate of existing iron pipes being 50-100 only. 'Some' pipes are indeed estimated as being over 100 years, but by no means all. I have highlighted those sections which do support arguments for 'ancient' infrastructure - it should be noted that iron pipes (for gas) are much more robust than the pottery etc. water distribution and removal infrastructure.

2. Estimating the age of the UK gas network Future uses of the gas network depend on how long the existing infrastructure can be expected to remain in good working order. We estimate the age of each part of the existing network in this section.

Construction of the NTS began in the 1960s and the majority of the current network was built over a 10-year period (Williams, 1981). Transmission pipes have an expected lifetime of 80 years (National Grid, 2011b) so we expect the existing network to become obsolete from around 2050.

The mains distribution networks have been constructed over many decades as the number of customers has gradually increased and some pipes are now more than 100 years old. We have estimated the development of the networks using data from several sources (DECC, 2011c; ENA, 2010; Gas Council, 1960, 1970; Mitchell et al., 1990; Transco, 1999; Williams, 1981). The total length of the distribution networks was approximately proportional to the number of customers until around 1960, when construction of higher-pressure distribution pipes commenced to reconfigure the previously fragmented system for national gas delivery. This development added 50,000 km of pipes while the customers totalled 13 million (Fig. 1). The introduction of natural gas also enabled the huge increase in domestic gas consumption per customer since 1960 that is shown in Fig. 2. Estimating the age of the network is more complicated than finding the total length because pipes are occasionally replaced before the end of their life. It was necessary for us to estimate the replacement level, particularly in the early years, as described in Dodds and McDowall (2012a). ...

A more uncertain factor is the lifetime of the mains distribution pipes, particularly as polyethylene pipes have been used instead of iron pipes since 1970. The 89,000 km of iron pipes that remain in the system have been in service for between 50 and 100 years (HSE, 2001). There are little data to determine the lifetimes of polyethylene pipes; Ofgem assumes 50 years for accounting purposes (CEPA and Denton, 2010, p. 71) but a review of the Dutch network, which has used PVC pipes for more than 50 years, concluded that they will continue in service for many years to come (Visser et al., 2008). We assume an average lifetime of 80 years for both iron and polyethylene low-pressure pipes in this study. We examine the consequences of this assumption in a sensitivity study in Section 4.2.

Little data are available about service pipes. Mitchell et al. (1990) estimate the total length using an average service pipe length of 11.3 m per customer and we have adopted the same approach. Service pipes are smaller than mains pipes and are more likely to be replaced due to changes to the built environment; for example, between 1970 and 1990, 64% of the service pipes were replaced compared to only 24% of the distribution pipes (Mitchell et al., 1990). We assume a shorter average lifetime of 60 years for service pipes in this study.

[James Barber]

Hi P68,

I am solely going on meetings where we've asked question of Thames Water and Southern Gas Networks.

[Penguin68]

Whose best interests are served by arguing for increased tariffs to 'pay' for necessary infrastructure improvements - and who can use age as an excuse for breakdowns and leaks. It is possible that all the ancient infrastructure left in the country is concentrated in SE London (which would at least be consistent with the failures to invest in roads and mass transport south or the river) - however I can recall programmes of replacement locally leading to road disruptions which would suggest there is some new infrastructure here, at last for gas.

[edhistory]

Thanks Penguin68. That was a very interesting contribution.

There's a lesson for Mr Barber not to rely on un-verified information from such sources.

John K

[stevie23b]

If it's burst it's burst and Mr. Barber or anyone else is not going to fix it apart from a squad of buck navvies.