Will Severn Trent get grumpy I dug to the meter

[Oldguyglos]

I am replacing a galv water pipe 40 meters up to the main in the road. 25mm egeplast barrier pipe laid and pulled into house, all done to regs I think, but to find something to connect to I started digging through the old stone wall by the road, and all the loose earth Severn Trent had filled their exploratory hole with my side of the meter just fell out. So now it looks like this with about 6 inches of grade in the top:

So I could maybe connect onto that short 25mm tail or I could put a longer piece of blue on the bottom elbow. My puzzle is that the water meter is about 12 inches out from the tarmac edging.

So if I connect onto the meter tail I will need to leave it for them to inspect. Are they going to get grumpy about me digging beyond my boundary? The road is a narrow country lane dead end so nothing goes through here faster than 15mph to the 5 houses after mine, and nothing drives between the meter and my boundary due to a nearby wall. There is tarmac between the wall and the edging but grassed over.

So do I go onto that little tail, which leaves one fitting underground instead of 3, and a better flow line?

Or do I replace the six inches of blue that went to the galv coupling from the bottom fitting, using a longer piece that comes to my side of the wall, put the wall back and fill in hole behind the wall, and just show them a coupling onto the MDPE on my side of the boundary? The pressure on the main is high, about 7 bar, and we are just two older folks in a bungalow, so the extra fittings probably don’t really matter flow wise. We were used to the 10 mm sq left in the middle of the 3/8 ! galv pipe anyway.

Any advice on Severn Trents flexibility appreciated. I don’t really want them to decide they want hundreds? of pounds off me just to satisfy themselves that the road edge is put back how they think it should be.

The reason there’s a wall underground is that there used to be an outhouse cut into the ground below the road with an 18 inch back wall, Which is why the distance from the pit to the water meter is a couple of feet.

 

[Oldguyglos]

So it seems that Severn Trent are really not very interested in leak repair work that you do yourself. I guess it’s such a small number of people that they don’t have a process to notice that I have done an entire pipe replacement. I phoned to ask for an inspection and was told I don’t get one. Someone comes and checks that the meter is stationary, listens for any sounds of leak at the meter, and that’s it. My neighbour say a man turned up Friday, poked at the meter, peered over the fence at my trench and left. Is that it? Where is my day in court, well of inspection anyway, that I have been working towards for weeks? After all the fuss they make with any reconnections, you would have thought they would want to see that a pipe replacement was done right. Well that seems to settle the question of whether they will mind, they don’t know…. I decided anyway that I couldn’t bear to reuse two old elbows and leave them in the supply, and would live dangerously and see what happened so I shored the verge up with a bit of scaff plank packed on top with base, and got a new Plasson barrier coupler onto the blue meter tail. Just waiting for a message from Severn Trent to tell what the outcome of the visit is Now.

 

[MeldrewsMate]

I'm surprised you can sleep at night. I've no experience of ST water, but I imagine they will report that you've done a grand job. To be picky they might ask you to insulate the pipe that's higher than 700mm below ground level, but I doubt they could be bothered!
Some backfilling with gravel around the base of the meter housing may help to keep the meter from becoming submerged.

 

[Andy165]

I am in United Utilities area. To make changes or replace your water supply pipe you have to get their written permission first. Then they have to inspect the trench depth is correct before you backfill. You are also required to be certified as competent to do the work and meet their install standards. Otherwise they will not connect you. If the install is proven wrong they can refuse and even prosecute as to the dangers to others on that supply . It's their water supply and they have their own approved contractors. Did you get written permission to proceed and get inspected ? Otherwise there may be problems ahead. From the pictures it seems you have done a good job. But going onto the public highway is a big no no. The council have their own contractors who get permits from the council and have "certified" personnel. It really does get nasty if you go onto public boundary. They get their own personnel to investigate and contractors out to reinstate , and present you with the bill and most likely prosecute. Usually these days , services are so stretched they do nothing until an accident happens and then take action.

 

[Oldguyglos]

@Andy165 I was expecting that kind of stuff. When I spoke to the leaks support line I said I was going to lay the pipe because I didnt want cost/diggers in my garden and asked what do I do to request the meter reconnection. The lady didn’t know and called the supervisor in who said just make the connection and the inspector will check the work. So apparently for Severn Trent no written pre approval Is needed because they don’t regard leak repairs as work requiring approved contractors. What is surprising is that if they don’t require approved contractors, they also are not doing a full inspection. But we will see what they say when the write to me, since he has seen the scale of the work maybe he will tell the office to book a full inspection. Either way I am just doing what I was told to do or I wouldn’t have been going down this route in the first place. I wanted to do my own trench but I have no problem booking someone else for the connection if necessary.

I also agree digging in the highway would be a step too far. But I’m not digging in the highway, I’m two feet below a verge for a short distance. Everything has its grey zone.

 

[Andy165]

Keep records of these phone calls , people you spoke with and advice given for future reference. If problems arise later on, very often if there is no paper trail , the conversations may be denied. Not trying to be negative, but know people who have been shat on. You seem to know your way around the pipe and fittings. Were you in the trade? Good luck. It seems the different Water companies have different rules they adhere to, although the Water Regulations cover all. Just redone that training course. 1 day at £230. Certificate lasts for 5 years before renewal.

 

[Madrab]

Certificate lasts for 5 years before renewal

Interesting - my last Logic WRAS has no expiry date

 

[CBW]

Interesting - my last Logic WRAS has no expiry date

I don’t think mine (bpec) does either. Will have to check!

 

[Oldguyglos]

I'm surprised you can sleep at night. I've no experience of ST water, but I imagine they will report that you've done a grand job. To be picky they might ask you to insulate the pipe that's higher than 700mm below ground level, but I doubt they could be bothered!
Some backfilling with gravel around the base of the meter housing may help to keep the meter from becoming submerged.

I’m an engineer, I live with uncertainty everyday, I guess I have got hardened to it
Do they insulate the water pipe rising to their side of the water meter? Or to put it another way, why don’t they put their meter 750mm underground?
Thanks for the gravel suggestion, good idea. At present I think it just drains happily down through the wall since the real ground level on my side is about a meter down from the road. But makes sense not to pack it with impervious subbase at the bottom of the meter. The meter tube is usually full of mud from the stream that flows at the lane edge anyway! I am doing a similar drainage thing down at the duct entry to the house, since the road is about 4 metres above the house level. I figured if water does find its way into the duct somehow despite me gel sealing the high end, then it will empty into my outside loo and can easily find holes in the walls into the kitchen. So when the duct reaches the lowest level outside the house I am bedding it in gravel and making holes in, so any water flowing down the duct will escape rather than come into the house. I did debate whether to try to seal the duct at the house end but decided in the end to leave it. If the water flowing in the duct is enough to rise the extra foot of height from the winter water table into the outside loo then its probably a signal that something needs looking into anyway. I am also considering putting a french drain all round the uphill sides of the house anyway, because with doubtful 1930s tar damp proof course the uphill side of the house does have some rising damp in the brickwork and low plaster. Taking the water level down another foot would probably help a lot.

 

[Oldguyglos]

Keep records of these phone calls , people you spoke with and advice given for future reference. If problems arise later on, very often if there is no paper trail , the conversations may be denied. Not trying to be negative, but know people who have been shat on. You seem to know your way around the pipe and fittings. Were you in the trade? Good luck. It seems the different Water companies have different rules they adhere to, although the Water Regulations cover all. Just redone that training course. 1 day at £230. Certificate lasts for 5 years before renewal.

No I wasn’t in the trade. I’m an engineer who likes to do his own trades work when practical, and the internet is an amazing place for picking up info quickly now. Also I do have a 20mm MDPE irrigation system in my garden so I have met PE and PE fittings. I settled on barrier pipe both because the ground my side of that wall was built up with builders waste, plaster, smell of solvents, petrol smells that run in the stream at the edge of the tarmac, and also when I started looking at lifetime of PE I didnt like what I read about its limited tolerance of scratching. Since I have pulled under several terrace walls and around curves down my garden I didnt want to be worrying about scratching. Barrier pipe is genius because you have a tough outer layer not bonded to the internal PE, so you can scratch the outside up as much as you like without having any impact on lifetime. Also this means they can make the internal pipe out of good grade HDPE since you aren’t trying to sell a low cost pipe into the market. That all satisfies my engineers need for good spec materials. Barrier pipe needs special couplings so I read up about Plasson and Philmac. The barrier is Egeplast SLA and only the Plasson is listed as compatible, and the Egeplast guy I spoke to advised Plasson. The elbow couplings that came off the old connection were marked Philmac Polygrip, which looks identical to what is now sold as Protectaline barrier pipe fittings. Since they used that on the meter tail connection I concluded fitting barrier fitting onto 25mm blue works ok. The part of the Philmac that inserts into the pipe is a smidgin larger than the Plasson so decided to go with the Plasson coupling which I know to be right for the SLA. The only drawback here is that where I have put Plasson in where the Philmac was before its not very tight in the 25mm blue as the old insert was that bit bigger. But I figured the clamp ring will tighten down and ensure it grips anyway just as does on a flat insert with normal 25mm fittings. It’s not leaking so its good enough. In a perfect world it would be nice to put a new bit of blue in the meter tail, but I draw the line at tinkering with the meter push fit. If I hadn’t been able to get watertight on the coupling to the tail then I would have called in an authorised plumber.

In fairness I did start all this by calling the only Watersafe plumber in my corner of the countryside and said, if I dig the trench and get the pipe in will you came and do the connections and sign it off. His answer was “I don’t do anything involving groundworks.” Ah well, I tried the official route…..

 

[Oldguyglos]

So the answer is no they wont get grumpy! (At least in my case). As the leaks helpline told me when I phoned them saying I was finished the inspector only checks that the leak has been fixed and does not inspect the work done at all! I received a letter confirming that I don’t leak any more and the section 75 is cancelled. Silly that they left it open since I closed the stopcock 3 months ago and they came and checked I had.

Disappointed not to have someone give me marks for my install, but happy that there is no contention over the meter connection.

 

[JimCrow]

Interesting - my last Logic WRAS has no expiry date

The Logic Water Regs courses are only held at centres in Northolt, Luton, Basildon and Sittingbourne that's a fair bit of travelling to the outskirts of London for a course that has no clout in Scotland Madrab, any particular reason for going there?.

 

[Madrab]

any particular reason for going there

I lived in Bexhill-on-Sea for a number of years and that's where I sat my WRAS and my Part P which were helpful being down south. When I came back up to Scotland I just had to pass an extension for the Scottish bylaws, which TBH are almost identical and use the same manual as WRAS, so it was really just a repeat but it then allowed APS and CPS reg up here.