Lead pipe replacement

[alanthomaswatson]

After reporting a poor water supply United Utilities have been round and think that we're still on the old lead water supply pipe and are shared with the neighbours. The long term solution being to put in a new direct plastic feed from the main.

Appreciate you're going in blind but anyone an idea as to cost? From the boundary wall to the house is about four meters, then would need to enter the cellar wall and connect to the cold pipe about 3 meters away. Most of the garden it would be coming through is grass with only a 800mm wide block path adjacent to the house.

The guy from UU reckoned about £500-600 but I have fallen foul of trusting them before! Input much appreciated.

 

[Fluffster]

I reckon he is about right, you have to use an approved installer otherwise UU will charge you to inspect the pipework from memory.

Pete

 

[bengasman]

Thames water charge about 500 squid for connection to meter, plus maximum 1 metre digging, could even be half a metre.
£600 for the lot? Sign him up right there.

 

[gavinda]

i dug my own trench, fitted my own stopcock and thames water/three valleys connected fitted a new stopcock in the road and connected my end yo thiers. they charged me the sum of £0.00.

i left the trench open so they could see how deep and where the pipe was run. total cost of about £50 in materials.

 

[gavinda]

btw

while you are having this work done , why not renew as much of you existing internal mains in 22mm for a bonus increase in your water pressure

 

[bengasman]

i dug my own trench, fitted my own stopcock and thames water/three valleys connected fitted a new stopcock in the road and connected my end yo thiers. they charged me the sum of £0.00.

i left the trench open so they could see how deep and where the pipe was run. total cost of about £50 in materials.

So why did they quote me 500 squid?
Do I look like I got money falling out of my ass-hole?

 

[Stingray13]

So why did they quote me 500 squid?
Do I look like I got money falling out of my ass-hole?

Don't know can't see for all the money falling all over the place

 

[gavinda]

tbh what you get up to behind closed doors is up to you.




well the did quote me £450 for the work at the pre survey, but when the guys turned up to connect me a few weeks later they said that they just say this to prevent builders from breaking stopcocks to get new ones or somesuch. this was whilst my house was a total shell and looked like a builders site but i wasnt going to complain.

 

[powell30]

btw

while you are having this work done , why not renew as much of you existing internal mains in 22mm for a bonus increase in your water pressure

Increasing the pipe sizing doesn't increase the pressure......just the flow rate. But i get where your coming from

 

[Biggles..]

because under the lead replacement scheme connections are £0.

 

[gavinda]

mine wasnt done under that.. mine was because i gutted the whole house and repiped theb lot. i now have 22mm to my combi and its so powerfull it hurts

 

[bengasman]

because under the lead replacement scheme connections are £0.

I advised my ex to do this. Called TW, month later bloke comes around to take sample of water. Some time later, she got a letter stating that the water was not bad enough to warrant free replacement.

Is there a special section of TW that will do connection for free if pipe is deep enough and ready for connection?
Got the mdpe ready, but she politely told them about alternative location for it.

 

[gavinda]

i guess you wont know till they turn up... its a free service but they dont want to advertise. i was willing to pay but just got an unexpected result.

 

[bengasman]

I would not be willing to risk that; proper pipe would be nice, but not nice enough for £500 into TW's coffers.

 

[alanthomaswatson]

Folks. Sorry should have been a bit clearer.

The UU stuff is free for the connection to the main etc, but we have to get our own plumber in to connect our house to the main. Apparently UU don't want to touch anything in your demise.

The £500-600 is for the plumbers work.