Thames Water has a new high-powered weapon to tackle cowboy builders who allow concrete and other building materials to block sewers.
The new high-pressure jetting and vacuumation tanker is operating across London and the Thames Valley, including Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, and parts of Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Gloucestershire.
It has the additional water jetting power needed to blast concrete from the inside of a sewer, preventing the need for a costly and time-consuming excavation to replace a blocked pipe.
The £430,000 JHL jet vac tanker, which is more than four times more powerful than a standard machine, is supporting the work of Lanes Utilities, part of Lanes Group plc, the wastewater network maintenance partner for Thames Water.
Thames Water says it has become increasingly concerned about the number of instances in which concrete, and other difficult-to-remove materials, cause sewer blockages that can disrupt services.
In February, it had to begin a major civil engineering project to remove a 10-metre section of main sewer under Hanover Park, Peckham, South London, which was found to be filled with concrete.
Other construction materials, such as mortar, grout and mastic can get into drains and sewers. Once solidified, they create snagging points for other materials wrongly disposed of down drains, such as wet pipes and sanitary products.
The problem may only be discovered during periods of heavy rainfall, when the restricted flow in the sewer results in localised flooding, something Thames Water is tackling with its Bin it – don’t block it campaign.
Lanes Utilities Director Andy Brierley said: “In some cases, builders accidentally pour concrete and other materials down drains and sewers, but in others it appears to be a deliberate act to avoid the need to dispose of it legitimately.
“By their very nature, these blockages can be devastating for whole communities. One moment a large sewer can be flowing freely, the next it can be completely blocked, or flooding, inconveniencing thousands of wastewater customers.”
The high-pressure unit is operated by wastewater engineers Chris Costin and Dan Merry. Chris said: “This is a very effective piece of kit. We can now cut large chunks of concrete and other material from inside pipes, and remove pretty much all traces of the blockage to reduce the risk of snagging and further blockages.
“If the sewer is blocked along its length, there may be no option but to excavate and replace it but for a lot of our most serious blockage problems, we’ve now stepped up several levels in our capability to deal with them.”
