United Utilities Water: competent designers?

[Declan52]

2 minutes ago, AnonymousBosch said:

Well well, well. You'll never guess what happened next ...................

 

10 minutes ago a guy from United Utilites Water came out and weighed the job up.  I can't (well, shouldn't) report the language used, but he thought that the design was somewhat lacking in common sense. He agreed that a leaking packing gland in a valve was a foreseeable failure and that therefore the design I was asked to follow was not competent.

The site was surveyed, marked up on the ground and a job logged inside 5 minutes. A few moments later I had a text notification that the job to insert an external stop valve had been raised . Lively discussions followed about  Head Office people - in a wide variety of disciplines -  not knowing what they are doing  .

The job might well be finished inside 5 working days. Result !Top Bloke!

 

Lets see what happens next.

 

Why oh why did UU try it on?

Good result then.

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, Declan52 said:

Good result then.

Yes a victory for common sense.

[ToughButterCup]

Two extremely sensible gorillas from UU turned up yesterday: muscles come out of their ears - I would not like to have tangled with either of them.  In tow - a brand new Volvo digger in a proper smart digger trailer: I drooled. They listened patiently to me drooling

 

"Loada Crap is 'em Voulez Vous diggas mert, load a crap"

Using a Mark I shovel - I kid you not - they dug a neat hole in the time it took me to bring them a cuppa.

In the time it took me to supervise the site labourer (SWMBO) they'd fitted the stop tap.

In the time it took SWMBO to bollock me up hill and down dale (I'd jumped on the Gabions and knocked them out of line by a mm or two) they'd gone.

 

 

What a neat, professional job.

The shovel strikes again! Our ground is full of nasty glacial till stone. Hard as nails those lads, hard as nails. Thank God.

 

[Ed Davies]

So how are you going to make sure that stays accessible?

[ToughButterCup]

One of those long T shaped thingys with a yoke on the end of it. They are coming fit the container box for it sometime soon.

Thats not what concerns me ...

 

The hole will fill with water, and thus sludge. (fine bits of glacial till - sandy clay). Wont be long before the tap becomes unusable, unless I do summat about it.

I think I'm just going to have to connect the hole to the land drain.

 

What I could do with is a tame, obedient pet mole: I'm sick of digging up our frontage.

 

I understand @Construction Channel  trains them ......

[ProDave]

That's why they fit a proper enclosed "toby" here, like I linked to before.

 

How did they shut the water off to fit it?  A pipe squasher?

[Construction Channel]

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

How did they shut the water off to fit it?  A pipe squasher?

They didn't. 

The live pipes about 2 foot to the left. That's just an offcut they put in the hole while Ian was making the tea. ?

[Jeremy Harris]

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

That's why they fit a proper enclosed "toby" here, like I linked to before.

 

 

 

The snag I've found with the enclosed ones is that they end up full of water and crud anyway.  At our old house, it was in the pavement outside the house and when I needed to shut the water off to replace the stopcock inside the house, I had to spend half an hour or so digging debris out of the small hole, and then struggling to get the very rusty valve to close (needed to make up a beefy key with a crowbar through the top to get the thing to shift).