Lead water main

[rob7475]

The main water pipe coming into our house is lead which then changes over top copper shortly after entering the house.

The water flow is around 12 litre per minute which has been OK for the 15 years we've lived here but we're now looking to add another bathroom with shower in the loft.

I've applied for Yorkshire water's lead replacement scheme but they have advised that our house is fed from a private 2" water main that runs through the back gardens of our street (apparently this is common in our area).They said we can get someone in to replace the lead back to the 2" main and don't need to involve them.

Yorkshire water do have a 4" main running along the pavement at the front of our house. We can request a new connection to this main if we want but would need a contractor to run a new pipe from our boundary into the house before paying Yorkshire water about £1500 to connect it up in the pavement.

The cheaper option would be to get a contractor to replace the lead to the 2" private main but I'm unsure if I would get a good improvement being fed from a 2" main or if I should just get connected to the 4" main.

We're on a WB 8000 30kw combi, no tanks. We may want to have both showers going at the same time. I'm not sure the 30kw boiler will cope with 2 showers so if we can get the incoming mains flow up to a decent level, I may put a decent electric shower in the loft

Has anyone experienced similar?

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Normal practice is to self lay a new Service to the Boundary, (leaving sufficient pipe for the Water Company's People to join up to), complying to their requirements, then the Water Company connect to their main at your cost. Old supply would need to be capped at the point where it Tees off the sub main.


Whether you would see any improvement by putting a new service in to the 2" main would be difficult to say, it depends what restrictions and demand are already present, so it could be entirely possible you would see little or no improvement, with the added long term disadvantage, you are still taking water supplied through lead pipework.

I'd personally bite the bullet, run a new service out to the Boundary at the front, get that connected to the bigger main and terminate the connection to the existing supply.

 

[old duffer]

https://heatpumps.co.uk/technical/flow-rate-and-pressure-drop-simulator/ see for yourself

 

[JohnD]

It's also possible that the old private main will go wrong sooner or later, which will be inconvenient and expensive.