Domestic water supply pipe problem

[The Family Cyclist]

After any advice from the great collected knowledge here. My neighbours having an extension and uncovered the shared water pipe. They're terraced houses so comes under one house. Along the back of several more and then out under another. The pipes failed. Whether that's due to work or its been going and uncovering it was final straw we don't know. It's apparently iron and from my quick peek this morning around 32mm or the imperial equivalent. Its an 100 year old row of houses so gonna be something old

They obviously need to get this fixed and water company have advised getting it all done at once rather then connecting new to old which kinda makes sense. They also advised they can take legal action if we have leaks. They wouldn't give a proper quote to neighbour but said could be around £1500 which seems mad to me especially as it doesn't enter in our garden just goes through it. The feed from the through pipe to my house may have been changed last year. We had building work and can't remember if they did. Waiting for my builders to ring me back on that.

What are my options, we need to act fairly fast as have reduced flow currently. I'm imagining they replace it with plastic pipe these days so tempted to dig the chanel myself and say when they do the other houses they can run through my garden and I'm prepared to pay a reasonable charge for pipe but can do the digging and making good myself.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I know nothing about the liability.

However, I'd get this done asap. leaks from water pipes cause all sorts of problems.

£1500 to dig a trench around a bunch of house, go under walls (presumably some of you have garden walls), shut off main supply, connect into each house's supply, reconnect mains and test, then fill in trench  - that doesn't seem excessive to me. Not cheap, but not excessive. It won't be a 5 minute job.

[rafletcher]

You'll need a pigged run of 32mm polypro pipe. We were fortunate when we had a similar issue. We're in a row of 8 cottages, with a common incomer that splits 4 and 4.  At some point the incoming pipework was buried under rear extensions, one of which then sank and crushed the 15mm copper pipe that had been installed by the cowboys in the '70's as the mains feed  . We were at the end, and couldn't get enough pressure to fill the loft tank....

Fortunately our neighbour had one of those oft derided household insurance policy's that covered plumbing, and that paid out (and arranged for) a new main to be brought in to all 4 affected properties. The claim limit was £3k IIRC. Took a couple of days, and as I mentioned above, they dug pits for the take-offs to each property and pigged the pipe through. That meant minimal disruption to patios, walls etc, and much less making good.

[Polar Bear]

Get a local firm in (we have Mole Force One in Rugby) who can burrow a new pipe through with minimal excavation work required.  Replace the whole lot if all neighbours agree as your title deeds will no doubt reveal that you all have equal shared liability.

£1500 sounds a reasonable quote by our experience.

We have uncooperative neighbours so the shared pipe which we ironically have not used for 20 years or more has been patched twice now in recent years.

[Greenbank]

pig

I have nothing to add other than this gives me a huge flashback to my GCSE Physics exam in, er, 1992, where one of the questions was about a pipe PIG and involved calculations to do with pressure and area.

[Diver300]

We had a water pipe moved (well, bypassed)  that involved a pig and minimal digging. It was all done in one day and was around £1000.

I don't think £1500 is excessive.

[grams]

£1500 split between multiple houses for major work that clearly needs doing seems barely worth arguing about.

The fun part is getting everyone to pay their share. Don't be that guy.

[Mr Larrington]

pig

I have nothing to add other than this gives me a huge flashback to my GCSE Physics exam in, er, 1992, where one of the questions was about a pipe PIG and involved calculations to do with pressure and area.

Here's one I found earlier:

[The Family Cyclist]

No it's 1500 each. Which for us is basically about 25 foot max of plastic pipe and a few connectors. I'll dig the hole myself for that money

[rafletcher]

Or get another quote. I guess they figure it's a "distress purchase" and ramp the price up accordingly.  At least the trench doesn't have to be that deep, maybe 300-400mm. No insulation required, assuming you're in the UK and don't get permafrost!

[grams]

I don't think you're right to assume you're only responsible for the part of the work that's physically on your property.

[Polar Bear]

I don't think you're right to assume you're only responsible for the part of the work that's physically on your property.

I would agree.  Check your title deeds but I am 99.999% certain that you will find liability is shared for the entire pipe, not just the bit on your property.

[matthew]

Also check that the installers are appropriate to do it, the water company will 'own' the pipe up to the probably common external stop tap, I am not sure what the regulations are about people working on the customer side of the stop tap are but if they were working on the upstream side they would have to hold a 'National Water Hygiene' training card (known in the industry as a blue card) This qualification is managed by EUSR (energy & utilities skills register) and ensures all people working with distribution systems and water treatment work appropriately for a food grade product.

It sounds like the original was a 1" cast iron pipe, the dimension being the nominal internal bore, with an outside diameter of circa 32mm. what you are looking for is probably MDPE (preferably in blue meaning water, rather than yellow meaning gas). This will then need tees to connect to each property so pits will required for each connection but a mole installation is wise. The nice thing with PE is the fittings can be compression or better yet fusion, where an embedded coil is used to heat the plastic and 'weld' the fitting to the pipe.

Check with the water supplier if they have appropriate standards to apply.

[Polar Bear]

AIUI the water company owns the pipe under the public highway and the landowner owns the pipe under their property.  The water company will work to / supervise work upto the property boundary.

[matthew]

AIUI the water company owns the pipe under the public highway and the landowner owns the pipe under their property.  The water company will work to / supervise work upto the property boundary.

This is correct, the external stop tap is normally located as close to this point as possible.

It may not be the correct water supplier for you but the following document explains for where I am and most water company websites will have something simillar.

South East Water guidance leaflet on leaks on customer pipes

[Davef]

Or get another quote. I guess they figure it's a "distress purchase" and ramp the price up accordingly.  At least the trench doesn't have to be that deep, maybe 300-400mm. No insulation required, assuming you're in the UK and don't get permafrost!

I am sure it has to be deeper than that but I am not sure of what depth precisely - it was around 2 foot I think. When we had ours done the water company wanted to check the depth before they would reconnect. 


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[canny colin]

Minimum depth for blue domestic supply  is  750  mm from top of pipe ( crown ) to finished ground level
Maximum depth for blue domestic supply is  1350 mm .
350 mm minimum from nearest services
If you hand dig it is well worth ducting the pipe . ( Ducting is cheap as chips ). AND  place  warning tape over the pipe .
I have boat loads of tape so if you want some tell me the length i will cut some of a roll and post it to you . colin 

[ian]

I hate to be the one to say it, but in my experience whenever there's work to be done with a communal liability, there's always one household that looks at the quote and goes 'I'm not paying that, I could do it for half the price.'

[Kim]

I hate to be the one to say it, but in my experience whenever there's work to be done with a communal liability, there's always one household that looks at the quote and goes 'I'm not paying that, I could do it for half the price.'

...and then doesn't.

[The Family Cyclist]

The neighbour with the leak has had it fixed. The other side of me which the supply comes under is rented and land lord isn't currently interested as its not broke.

Apparently we will be contacted individually ref our own pipes but unless they are leaking we don't need to do anything

[Gattopardo]

I hate to be the one to say it, but in my experience whenever there's work to be done with a communal liability, there's always one household that looks at the quote and goes 'I'm not paying that, I could do it for half the price.'

...and then doesn't.

Yep.

[Gattopardo]

The neighbour with the leak has had it fixed. The other side of me which the supply comes under is rented and land lord isn't currently interested as its not broke.

Apparently we will be contacted individually ref our own pipes but unless they are leaking we don't need to do anything

As others have mentioned, what does it say in the deeds.... if it is mentioned.  Usually up to the stop cock is the water company and or the edge of your property.