Where does my water come from
Discussion
Spare tyre said:
Seems to be a local flap about a local reservoir running low, low pressure, bottles being delivered to house holds, lorries manually topping up a reservoir etc
Which got me thinking, it’s there a map I can see which tells me what reservoir serves which area etc
Cheers
When they say "topping up a reservoir", they mean a service reservoir, which is a sealed tank with security hatches which contains your drinking water which is pumped there from whatever water treatment works is serving your area. Which got me thinking, it’s there a map I can see which tells me what reservoir serves which area etc
Cheers
Water treatment works often have issues(treatment of raw water, equipment faults etc..) so mitigation is required, often in the form of tankering clean water via articulated lorries.
Most people would be astonished what goes into making their water and keeping it in supply, a modern water treatment works is an expensive and impressive piece of kit to keep running all year around, 24 hours a day
Not all water treatment works are fed from impounding reservoirs, some abstract raw water from rivers, salt lakes and also using boreholes from the natural water table.
Forgot to add, typically the service reservoir which supplies people with drinking water is typically situated higher than the surround populous.
Most people their water is supplied via gravity from the service reservoir, booster pumps are usually dotted around the area for properties above the service res or on the end of a supply line.
For every 10metres of height you require 1 bar of pressure, so a service reservoir at 170m requires a pumped pressure of around 17 bar from the water treatment works.
Water is obviously very demand driven so when a treatment works falls over and is unable to be restarted then the mitigation begins.
Most people turn on the tap and just expect water to be there, if they knew what actually goes on behind the scenes and how fragile most systems are they would be shocked.
Compared to electricity and gas water is cheap, but I know what I'd rather invest in!
Hope that helps
Most people their water is supplied via gravity from the service reservoir, booster pumps are usually dotted around the area for properties above the service res or on the end of a supply line.
For every 10metres of height you require 1 bar of pressure, so a service reservoir at 170m requires a pumped pressure of around 17 bar from the water treatment works.
Water is obviously very demand driven so when a treatment works falls over and is unable to be restarted then the mitigation begins.
Most people turn on the tap and just expect water to be there, if they knew what actually goes on behind the scenes and how fragile most systems are they would be shocked.
Compared to electricity and gas water is cheap, but I know what I'd rather invest in!
Hope that helps
sri16v said:
Spare tyre said:
Seems to be a local flap about a local reservoir running low, low pressure, bottles being delivered to house holds, lorries manually topping up a reservoir etc
Which got me thinking, it’s there a map I can see which tells me what reservoir serves which area etc
Cheers
When they say "topping up a reservoir", they mean a service reservoir, which is a sealed tank with security hatches which contains your drinking water which is pumped there from whatever water treatment works is serving your area. Which got me thinking, it’s there a map I can see which tells me what reservoir serves which area etc
Cheers
Water treatment works often have issues(treatment of raw water, equipment faults etc..) so mitigation is required, often in the form of tankering clean water via articulated lorries.
Most people would be astonished what goes into making their water and keeping it in supply, a modern water treatment works is an expensive and impressive piece of kit to keep running all year around, 24 hours a day
Not all water treatment works are fed from impounding reservoirs, some abstract raw water from rivers, salt lakes and also using boreholes from the natural water table.
Interestingly this sealed job is located in one of the highest places for miles, guess that allows slower 24/7 input for anytime higher output at peak
Spare tyre said:
You are spot on, it is indeed a sealed jobbie. I’m intrigued if there is a map of what feeds it and what it feeds, I find infrastructure facisnating
Interestingly this sealed job is located in one of the highest places for miles, guess that allows slower 24/7 input for anytime higher output at peak
All final water will be stored in a sealed tank, treated potable water would never be left in an uncovered tank due to risk of contamination and security risk.Interestingly this sealed job is located in one of the highest places for miles, guess that allows slower 24/7 input for anytime higher output at peak
It's not to do with slower input, it's purely to take advantage of gravity to supply people, the flip side of that coin is you require big pumps to get it up there from the water treatment works, due to most treatment works being at a low level geographically.
Pretty much all service reservoirs will have security systems on the hatches and fences which are linked to manned control rooms, which must be informed before opening any hatch or entering site.
Believe it or not, armed response police can attend these sites if unauthorised access to the service reservoir or hatches are opened without disabling and informing the control room before opening due to the terrorism risk of contaminating the water supply.
As I said before its a demand driven service, the service reservoir will be appropriately sized due to the demands of the area, increasing population and new housing puts extra strain on the system. Some of these reservoirs are 50 to 60 years old, they require regular inspection and cleaning aswell.
A water treatment works is designed and built with that in mind, but as they are a big investment money wise, there's no point overspeccing a treatment works with bigger pumps or higher capacity as during winter when demand is less, you have equipment that is less efficient due to not running at optimum speeds etc.
They are fully automated and everything is plc controlled, motors, pumps, chemical dosing systems, actuated valves, it's very clever stuff controlling thousands of pieces of equipment in a big process chain aswell as fully automatic emergency shutdown systems for water quality which are then linked back to a manned control room.
All sites have backup generators (typically 6 cylinder diesel such as rolls royce, perkins etc)which will run the site in the event of a power outage.
The electricity costs alone are eye watering, majority of equipment is 3 phase, some pumps have a full load current near 200 amps, and can be running as mentioned 24/7. That's before you get into chemical costs, onsite sodium hypochlorite generation (osec) chlorine gas, aluminium sulphate, sulphuric acid etc all bought in massive quantities. Staffing costs, maintenance, replacement parts which are also expensive, standby rota as cover is required 24/7, specialist training for certain tasks, it all adds up.
It's definitely an eye opener working in the industry, as prior to working there I just turned the tap on and thought no more of where it came from or what was involved.
As I said before, water is cheap, but requires massive investment to meet ever more stringent water quality and supply targets.
sri16v said:
Spare tyre said:
You are spot on, it is indeed a sealed jobbie. I’m intrigued if there is a map of what feeds it and what it feeds, I find infrastructure facisnating
Interestingly this sealed job is located in one of the highest places for miles, guess that allows slower 24/7 input for anytime higher output at peak
All final water will be stored in a sealed tank, treated potable water would never be left in an uncovered tank due to risk of contamination and security risk.Interestingly this sealed job is located in one of the highest places for miles, guess that allows slower 24/7 input for anytime higher output at peak
It's not to do with slower input, it's purely to take advantage of gravity to supply people, the flip side of that coin is you require big pumps to get it up there from the water treatment works, due to most treatment works being at a low level geographically.
Pretty much all service reservoirs will have security systems on the hatches and fences which are linked to manned control rooms, which must be informed before opening any hatch or entering site.
Believe it or not, armed response police can attend these sites if unauthorised access to the service reservoir or hatches are opened without disabling and informing the control room before opening due to the terrorism risk of contaminating the water supply.
As I said before its a demand driven service, the service reservoir will be appropriately sized due to the demands of the area, increasing population and new housing puts extra strain on the system. Some of these reservoirs are 50 to 60 years old, they require regular inspection and cleaning aswell.
A water treatment works is designed and built with that in mind, but as they are a big investment money wise, there's no point overspeccing a treatment works with bigger pumps or higher capacity as during winter when demand is less, you have equipment that is less efficient due to not running at optimum speeds etc.
They are fully automated and everything is plc controlled, motors, pumps, chemical dosing systems, actuated valves, it's very clever stuff controlling thousands of pieces of equipment in a big process chain aswell as fully automatic emergency shutdown systems for water quality which are then linked back to a manned control room.
All sites have backup generators (typically 6 cylinder diesel such as rolls royce, perkins etc)which will run the site in the event of a power outage.
The electricity costs alone are eye watering, majority of equipment is 3 phase, some pumps have a full load current near 200 amps, and can be running as mentioned 24/7. That's before you get into chemical costs, onsite sodium hypochlorite generation (osec) chlorine gas, aluminium sulphate, sulphuric acid etc all bought in massive quantities. Staffing costs, maintenance, replacement parts which are also expensive, standby rota as cover is required 24/7, specialist training for certain tasks, it all adds up.
It's definitely an eye opener working in the industry, as prior to working there I just turned the tap on and thought no more of where it came from or what was involved.
As I said before, water is cheap, but requires massive investment to meet ever more stringent water quality and supply targets.
Spare tyre said:
sri16v said:
Spare tyre said:
You are spot on, it is indeed a sealed jobbie. I’m intrigued if there is a map of what feeds it and what it feeds, I find infrastructure facisnating
Interestingly this sealed job is located in one of the highest places for miles, guess that allows slower 24/7 input for anytime higher output at peak
All final water will be stored in a sealed tank, treated potable water would never be left in an uncovered tank due to risk of contamination and security risk.Interestingly this sealed job is located in one of the highest places for miles, guess that allows slower 24/7 input for anytime higher output at peak
It's not to do with slower input, it's purely to take advantage of gravity to supply people, the flip side of that coin is you require big pumps to get it up there from the water treatment works, due to most treatment works being at a low level geographically.
Pretty much all service reservoirs will have security systems on the hatches and fences which are linked to manned control rooms, which must be informed before opening any hatch or entering site.
Believe it or not, armed response police can attend these sites if unauthorised access to the service reservoir or hatches are opened without disabling and informing the control room before opening due to the terrorism risk of contaminating the water supply.
As I said before its a demand driven service, the service reservoir will be appropriately sized due to the demands of the area, increasing population and new housing puts extra strain on the system. Some of these reservoirs are 50 to 60 years old, they require regular inspection and cleaning aswell.
A water treatment works is designed and built with that in mind, but as they are a big investment money wise, there's no point overspeccing a treatment works with bigger pumps or higher capacity as during winter when demand is less, you have equipment that is less efficient due to not running at optimum speeds etc.
They are fully automated and everything is plc controlled, motors, pumps, chemical dosing systems, actuated valves, it's very clever stuff controlling thousands of pieces of equipment in a big process chain aswell as fully automatic emergency shutdown systems for water quality which are then linked back to a manned control room.
All sites have backup generators (typically 6 cylinder diesel such as rolls royce, perkins etc)which will run the site in the event of a power outage.
The electricity costs alone are eye watering, majority of equipment is 3 phase, some pumps have a full load current near 200 amps, and can be running as mentioned 24/7. That's before you get into chemical costs, onsite sodium hypochlorite generation (osec) chlorine gas, aluminium sulphate, sulphuric acid etc all bought in massive quantities. Staffing costs, maintenance, replacement parts which are also expensive, standby rota as cover is required 24/7, specialist training for certain tasks, it all adds up.
It's definitely an eye opener working in the industry, as prior to working there I just turned the tap on and thought no more of where it came from or what was involved.
As I said before, water is cheap, but requires massive investment to meet ever more stringent water quality and supply targets.
No worries chaps, I tried to keep the explanation as simple as possible, it gets a lot more in depth with the water chemistry and science in the treatment and that's before you get to the more complicated PLC and SCADA systems that control it all!
A lot of the engineering/theory dates back to victorian times, I mainly work in water treatment works doing maintenance and installation (electrical/mechanical) but also on the network sites such as booster stations and service reservoirs, so I have acquired a lot of industry specific/pointless knowledge!
Happy new year to all!
A lot of the engineering/theory dates back to victorian times, I mainly work in water treatment works doing maintenance and installation (electrical/mechanical) but also on the network sites such as booster stations and service reservoirs, so I have acquired a lot of industry specific/pointless knowledge!
Happy new year to all!
sri16v said:
No worries chaps, I tried to keep the explanation as simple as possible, it gets a lot more in depth with the water chemistry and science in the treatment and that's before you get to the more complicated PLC and SCADA systems that control it all!
A lot of the engineering/theory dates back to victorian times, I mainly work in water treatment works doing maintenance and installation (electrical/mechanical) but also on the network sites such as booster stations and service reservoirs, so I have acquired a lot of industry specific/pointless knowledge!
Happy new year to all!
Very well described SRI, I do the PLC & SCADA parts you mentioned A lot of the engineering/theory dates back to victorian times, I mainly work in water treatment works doing maintenance and installation (electrical/mechanical) but also on the network sites such as booster stations and service reservoirs, so I have acquired a lot of industry specific/pointless knowledge!
Happy new year to all!
What part of the country are you based in? We may have crossed paths…
Happy New Year all
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