Thames Water is installing industry-leading leak monitoring equipment on the main water pipe serving central Reading as part of an £8m SmartWater4Europe initiative.
The water company is introducing the cutting-edge Syrinix Trunkminder technology to keep a close eye on the 82-year-old main thanks to the EU-funded research project.
The town relies heavily on the old 20-inch cast iron pipe, with any big cracks potentially causing major flooding and knocking out water supplies to homes and businesses.
Thames Water innovation programme manager Nic Clay-Michael said the Trunkminder – being used by the company for the first time outside London and Oxford – will considerably reduce the risk of a damaging big burst, and not cost customers a penny.
“We are proud to be involved in this exciting project, and it’s great we are able to share the benefits at no extra cost to our customers,” he said.
“Syrinix Trunkminder sits on the old pipe and actually listens to the water powering through the network. It gives us advanced warning if something changes, if something is not right.”
“This could be a very minor leak, just three or four drips a minute, or creak, but the technology allows us to act way before any catastrophic failure and, most importantly, customer impact.”
SmartWater4Europe aims to speed up innovations in key areas. The need to rehabilitate and monitor water networks over the next 10 to 30 years has been identified as a priority, sparking the considerable investment in four towns: Reading, Lille, in France, Leeuwarden, in Holland, and a to-be-confirmed location in Spain.
Installation of the Tilehurst Road kit, which will cover a key 1,000 metre stretch of the 1932-built trunk main, involves digging three chambers. The trial results will help understand the optimum levels of technology needed to deliver a better level of customer service in other areas in the Thames Water region and across Europe.
Thames Water will also install an additional valve on the pipe. This will reduce the number of customers potentially affected from no water or low pressure as a result of any future pipe failure from 50,000 to 20,000 people.
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