London Borough of Merton Council switched their 64 sites to us in 2019. Their Energy and Sustainability Manager got in touch with us due to concerns about an underground leak at one of their allotment sites. Their Automatic Meter Readings (AMR) showed unusually high continuous flow ratings at the Durnsford Allotment site, so our Water Efficiency Services team did some further investigations.
Completing a Leakage, Find and Fix survey
We proposed a Leakage Find and Fix Survey, and on our first site inspection we noticed the meter was recording a constant flow of 9 litres per minute. This decreased to 6 litres a minute once we located a running hosepipe and switched it off, however there was still work to be done.
The next stage was acoustic leak detection activities carried out along the mains, including cutting and capping the pipework at different sections where the leak was suspected.
The team found a leaking valve, which was promptly replaced with a new and functioning valve. The constant flow rate recorded by the meter fell to 1.5 litres per minute. Working specifically in this area, 20 metres of new pipework was laid and the constant flow recorded on leaving site was 0.4 litres per minute, something we were still looking to bring down to 0.
Excavations to fully eliminate leaks
Our team later returned to the site and carried out further investigations, identifying four valves to be renewed. Additional onsite excavations pinpointed the exact location of the leak which we were able to fix.
Considerable savings for the council
Our customer was losing 9 litres of water every minute and we’re pleased to say this was brought down to zero. This work saved the council over £20,000 per year in wasted water charges and was carried out in just over five days from locating and fixing the leak to bringing the automatic readings down to 0 litres per minute.
Richard Neal, Energy and Sustainability Manager said: “Wave’s Find and Fix service is really straight forward to use - whether we’ve identified a leak ourselves, or where Wave has queried high consumption with us directly. The team at Wave works in an efficient and systematic way to locate and then resolve any issues, and they communicated their progress and recommendations to us in a clear, timely way.”
We’ve been working with London Borough of Merton Council and their Energy and Sustainability team since 2019 and they consistently make use of our water efficiency services, such as Automatic Meter Readings (AMR) and High Consumption Alerts, following up with our Leakage Find and Fix Services when needed. Our team confidently support multiple premises on behalf of the council and ensure that their water consumption is efficiently managed.
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