Water supply improvements
Charles Everett has obtained an update from South East Water about upgrades to our water supply. There are three improvements in the pipeline (lol), all due to start in January 2019. In Battle Road (which we call Cackle Street), 1532 metres of 100 mm bore pipe. That is the best part of a mile of new pipe, so I would guess that that would certainly take in Riverhouses up to Twelve Oaks and perhaps all the way up the hill. Somewhere in Brightling Road, 626 metres of new 100 mm bore pipe, and in “Hollingrove Road” 300 metres of new 100 mm pipe. My guess is that this is that this refers to Hollingrove Lane, ie Twelve Oaks to Hollingrove.
For those born before 1971, I should explain that 100 mm is 4 inches – that is a decent sized pipe and I would imagine that it will bring a significant improvement.
A PRV (pressure reducing valve) was installed earlier in 2018 at Twelve Oaks. Basically, this makes it possible to raise the pressure for those who were getting rather low pressure, without giving others excessive pressure. On the subject of pressure, quite a few properties in the parish do seem to suffer with excessively high water pressure. Although low pressure is a more obvious issue, over-high pressure can be a problem too. It can cause leaks and damage to plumbing. Some washing machines may have a problem. And if you do have a leak, then you lose water faster if your pressure is high – resulting in big bills if you don’t notice it straight away. A pressure of 2 bar is more than enough and I know of at least one property that has around 20 bar, which is huge.
One solution is to fit a your own PRV on your incoming supply. About 18 months ago, one couple of Brightling residents actually managed to get the water company to pay for the fitting of a PRV – because they were able to prove that the excessive pressure had damaged their plumbing, and thus hold the water company responsible. But given that the above improvements are now only 6 months or so away, it would probably be wise to wait until after then before spending any money. NB Turning your stop-cock half off does not reduce the pressure, only the flow, which is probably not what you want.