Am I being unreasonable to feel a bit annoyed? (a long tale)

[Oldgreybeard]

Just spent/wasted a happy hour trying to find who to elevate this complaint to.

Seems OFWAT are mostly a financial regulator, they don't deal with complaints like this.

DEFRA don't either. they pass you back to the water company.

EA only deal with pollution or major flooding, they don't accept complaints from individuals about water company issues like this.

In the end I found CCW, who will, it seems, accept complaints, so I've typed the whole saga off and sent it to them.

Not sure if it will really make any difference. May be it will. Whatever way I'm going to pop out and pick up a roll of MDPE pipe on Monday, just in case.

[Mr Gus]

Utility companies are generally *unts.

We have the same issue which is why they are now banned from the land.

No custlmer account number, no talk to you!
(police are going that way too)
Get straight onto the Ofwat people.
Too many years ignoring a reported issue = their liability / malfeasance.

[smegal]

Just spent/wasted a happy hour trying to find who to elevate this complaint to.

Seems OFWAT are mostly a financial regulator, they don't deal with complaints like this.

DEFRA don't either. they pass you back to the water company.

EA only deal with pollution or major flooding, they don't accept complaints from individuals about water company issues like this.

In the end I found CCW, who will, it seems, accept complaints, so I've typed the whole saga off and sent it to them.

Not sure if it will really make any difference. May be it will. Whatever way I'm going to pop out and pick up a roll of MDPE pipe on Monday, just in case.

[Oldgreybeard]

Yes, that's right, OFWAT will intervene for sewerage flooding, but not mains water flooding. No idea why, but that was a part of my going around in circles process, finding that little gem out!

The local flooding authority here seems to be the EA, who said they didn't deal with flooding from water mains . . .

[Moxi]

Your quickest recourse is reporting the leak and resultant frost damage and undermining of the road to the council as they will be keen to get reimbursed for damage to their road from the water company.

Sadly the mains age means a long costly replacement rather than a repair so they will undoubtedly preferentially pick easier mains repairs and renewals that affect larger catchments.

Moxi

[Oldgreybeard]

Your quickest recourse is reporting the leak and resultant frost damage and undermining of the road to the council as they will be keen to get reimbursed for damage to their road from the water company.

Sadly the mains age means a long costly replacement rather than a repair so they will undoubtedly preferentially pick easier mains repairs and renewals that affect larger catchments.

Moxi

I agree, it's already been done by two others I know of, one tried several times during the week to get the council out to put some salt down, but they have a policy of not treating single track lanes, apparently. I can sort of understand that, as I doubt they would get a salt/gritter truck down the lane anyway.

The whole lane will need to be dug up and resurfaced soon, I think, for the reasons you've mentioned, the age of the pipe. The local historian has some photos of the pipes being laid, taken in 1934 when the area got mains water, and the old spring-fed stand pipes were all capped off (there are still a couple of these visible, but their pumps have long been removed).

Pretty much all the water infrastructure locally will almost certainly be still that which was put in by the local water company in the early 1930's, all most of it will now be around 90 years old. Looking at the pipe we uncovered, I don't even think it was ever galvanised, it looked as it it was most probably just black iron, so it's done pretty well to last as long as it has.

The lanes weren't tarmacked when the pipes went in, either, they didn't get properly surfaced until some time in the 1950s, or the mid-sixties for our lane. I've an old photo of a barn that used to sit where our house sits, taken in 1963, and the lane was still unsurfaced then.

[spread-tee]

Tell them it is pouring out so fast you are going to put a turbine in the flow to generate electricity and that they can stick their abstraction license up their jacksee. They will be round in the morning.

Desp

[Moxi]

In the right ground cast iron can and does extend to a life of around 80 to 110 years the older pipes being significantly thicker than their newer counter parts, similarly ductile which replaced cast in May areas can expect 60 years for a much thinner wall section if in the correct ground however if they get it wrong ductile can actually fail due to corrosion in a little over two years !

Over the years I have done a lot with mains inspection forecast to failure and replacements.

I would persist with the council but if they’re not interested then it’s a tough one and the only other option is for those on that main to send in concerns about water quality if the leaking pipe pressure drops out of service or a reverse pressure incident

Moxi

[Oldgreybeard]

Tell them it is pouring out so fast you are going to put a turbine in the flow to generate electricity and that they can stick their abstraction license up their jacksee. They will be round in the morning.

Desp

There are times when I would very much like there to be a "like" button on this forum!

[spread-tee]

Thanks, I always think a sense of humour is needed to get us through these weird times

Desp