Discussion
J4CKO said:
If arid countries manage with a fraction of our rain, our water companies really need to pull their fingers out of their arses and worry about supplying water, not just profit and dividends
How many "arid" countries or countries with the same rain fall as the south and east have the same population density as the south east of England does?Yes, the water mains have some leakage issues. Most summers I pump up to 10,000,000 gallons of water through ageing PVC pipes. EVERY year we get at least 3 bursts. The pipes are 6 inches in diameter and when they burst there is a hellova mess. But, we (I keep them)keep records of water use, so I've a pretty good idea of what we loose. When there is a burst the machine normally senses low pressure and switches off. Some times it weeps and the first we know is a puddle. On a burst we might loose a few cubic meters of water out of the burst and a few more from draining the line down. But considering we will pump 35 cu/hr and up to 400 cu/meters over a night run, what we loose is f
k all as a percentage of a days out put and we probably loose more to evaporation on the reservoir by quite a margin than all the bursts combined. Like the water companies it's better to react to the leaks and fix them as they happen than change all of the line in one go and we only have a few miles of it. Not thousands of miles.
People keep saying about storing it and pumping it from all over the country. This will be great until things start getting dug up next door to them. You can't just put reservoirs anywhere. There are a few engineering problems to over come first, like soil type for a start. It took us about 6 years of f
king and being fked about to build a bit of a pond for 10,000,000 gallons, which took up 6 acres of land. Now scale that up to serve a town like Cambridge. Then add all the infrastructure in to service it. It's a big project.I cannot understand why people are getting their knickers in such a twist about not being able to wash the bloody car, or water the f
king grass. If it's dry the car won't need washing. If the grass is brown, it doesn't need cutting and will grow back when it rains again. All people have to worry about is a dirty car and a brown lawn, they should think themselves very lucky. 
oyster said:
Hang on. One river near you has overflowed for 1 day, following 2 years of below-average rainfall, and you calim the drought is over?
Good grief.
No. I am claiming that we have never had a drought. Africa has droughts, we have dry spells where our hopeless water companies cannot manage the water demand correctly.Good grief.
Oh, and it isn't one river, the Welland is full to the brim, and in places over flowing, the Nene is pretty damn full too, as are all of the drainage ditches I have seen.
RizzoTheRat said:
Megaflow said:
ETA: Oh, and an update on all the rain from yesterday, the river that was high has burst its bank and is following into the neighbouring field, several drainage dykes were very high and there was standing water in fields.
If you have gentle rain over a long period of time it soaks in to the soil and raises the water table. If you get sudden heavy rain after a period of drought the soil doesn't absorb it and it all runs off. So bizarrely the river bursting it's bank can be an indicator of drought.RizzoTheRat said:
If you have gentle rain over a long period of time it soaks in to the soil and raises the water table. If you get sudden heavy rain after a period of drought the soil doesn't absorb it and it all runs off. So bizarrely the river bursting it's bank can be an indicator of drought.
However if the private businesses which provide our water service invested in capital projects to construct reservoirs, such as the Abingdon Reservoir, they could capture that river water and achieve both increased water reserves plus avoiding flash floods at the same time. Won't happen mind you, costs money which they prefer to use for dividends.
RizzoTheRat said:
Agreed, trouble is suitable sites are relatively few and far between, and always infested with NIMBYs, as well as such projects being very expensive for companies who's primary function is to make money for their share holders.
Maybe i am a little slow....... But wouldn't investment to supply more water actually increase profits. Ie these big capital projects would have some payback, due to the fact that at present 'sales' of water will be reduced due to the hosepipe ban, thus profits will be down. If a 'true' free market for water supply be set up, then those companies which invested in infrastructure would eventually get more sales and profit.....
Maybe a little naive on my behalf?
Mike
Hang about , has anyone noticed the increase in hosepipe bans after the companies were privatised?
Can anyone remember if we had bans back in the late seventies when we had some pretty hot summers/
Im not here to gloat , or mope on about profiteering i just want to know if theres been such a dramatic change after thatcher deemed it wise to privatise everthing.
Can anyone remember if we had bans back in the late seventies when we had some pretty hot summers/
Im not here to gloat , or mope on about profiteering i just want to know if theres been such a dramatic change after thatcher deemed it wise to privatise everthing.
I on a water meter, paying £38 per month with a family of 4 and we are as tight as you can be (if its brown flush it down if its yellow let it melloW), now i am paying more for H20 than my electric bill , H20 is quite common in berkshire where fosil fules are not, what is going on...... i can tell you water company are alowed to make big profits on money spent on investment on new infrastructure, so water shortage this year = new storage or new pipe line next year and hay presto more profit.
...
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last summer there was a burst pipe outside my house, the force of the water broke the pavement open where it then flowed freely into the drain.
I reported it to Thames water and they assured me it would be repaired within 24 hours, 6 days later someone turned up, put some plastic barriers around the leak (just incase someone couldnt see the waterfall and fell in I guess) and drove off, 4 days after that they actually fixed it.
I reported it to Thames water and they assured me it would be repaired within 24 hours, 6 days later someone turned up, put some plastic barriers around the leak (just incase someone couldnt see the waterfall and fell in I guess) and drove off, 4 days after that they actually fixed it.
Edited by Windlepoons on Friday 6th April 00:00
Daston said:
Am I the only one a little confused as to how we are short of water. Are we not in fact living on an island and surrounded by the stuff? Shirley in this day and age we can just remove salt from said water and treat it
Desalinisation. Costs a lot to build and even more to run, what with energy requirements.re. the 1970s. Can't comment re. hosepipe bans, but there was nothing like the demand for water back then. Plus, the odd hit summer doesn't matter anywhere near as much as successive dry winters.
re. re. water companies and reservoirs. They want to, but by the time you've found somewhere big enough, open enough, has suitable topography, geology and no NIMBY factor, well...
I've just had to re-turf our lawn, I guess that'll be dead inside a week 
Re the car washing; our water pressure is so low it takes over a minute to fill a bucket up.
I usually use one bucket of warm water for shampooing & I can rinse the entire car with a hose in around a minute, so that's 2 buckets worth of water, let's call it 3.
With a bucket alone, I shampoo with one bucket & then use one bucket to rinse the front, one over the roof, one for the rear, one for the nearside, one for the offside & one for the wheels. So that's twice as much needed when throwing buckets of rinsing water over the car compared to the accurate & directional hose.
I do understand why it is in force but surely a system like Spanish water authorities use is better where once in the last 13 years they decided to have a water curfew between certain hours of the day. Incidentally, the have a lot less rain fall than we do.
Re the car washing; our water pressure is so low it takes over a minute to fill a bucket up.
I usually use one bucket of warm water for shampooing & I can rinse the entire car with a hose in around a minute, so that's 2 buckets worth of water, let's call it 3.
With a bucket alone, I shampoo with one bucket & then use one bucket to rinse the front, one over the roof, one for the rear, one for the nearside, one for the offside & one for the wheels. So that's twice as much needed when throwing buckets of rinsing water over the car compared to the accurate & directional hose.
I do understand why it is in force but surely a system like Spanish water authorities use is better where once in the last 13 years they decided to have a water curfew between certain hours of the day. Incidentally, the have a lot less rain fall than we do.
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