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Keeping our water pipes in tip-top condition

With over 26,000 miles of water pipes serving around seven million customers throughout the North West, our teams work around the clock to keep taps flowing with great water.

Over time, historical mineral deposits can build up inside the pipes which, if disturbed, can sometimes give a yellow or brown tint to the water.  Across our region we’re carrying out an extensive programme of work to refresh, clean or replace water pipes which will help us continue to provide high-quality water. 

Before we're planning to carry out the work, we'll send a letter, card, email or text message with further details of when we’ll be in your area and how this may affect you.

What will the work involve?

You may see our team a few weeks before the cleaning work is due to take place as they carry out initial surveys, just to check that valves and hydrants are accessible and operate correctly.  The planned cleaning work takes place at night, usually between 11pm and 5.30am the following morning as this reduces inconvenience and is the period when less people are normally using water - in most instances you may not even notice we're there!

We use a variety of different methods to clean the pipes and our team move around the area to open fire hydrants at specific locations, carefully controlling the release of water and using as little as possible to flush out and remove any historical sediment.  There's further information on the different methods we use in the drop-down section below.

How this may affect you

While our team are working you may find that your tap water temporarily reduces in pressure, or after the work takes place it may appear a little discoloured. This is nothing to worry about and the pressure will quickly return to normal once our team have moved onto the next hydrant location.

If you do experience discoloured water it's quite easy to resolve and we have further advice  to get your water back to normal again. If you're on a meter, don't worry, the process to help the water clear would normally cost no more than 10 pence.

Where are we currently working?

Latest update: From Sunday 21 April we will be working to clean water pipes in the following areas: Blackburn, Burnley, Fylde, Macclesfield, Manchester, Preston, Stockport and Tameside.

Depending on the method, weather conditions or the length of pipe on that particular area of the network, we'll move around to different hydrant locations over a number of nights. For larger areas, the cleaning and flushing could take between two to four weeks to complete. Work does not take place on Friday or Saturday evenings.

Find out more about our modernisation programme of work on the Vyrnwy aqueduct which helps to deliver wholesome drinking water to customers and communities across Cheshire, Merseyside and the North West.  You can also find further information about our water pipe replacement projects here.  

Royal Mail delays: We're aware that, in some areas, Royal Mail delays may impact the delivery of cards arriving before the  cleaning work begins. We're really sorry if this affects you and our planning team are sending out the communications as quickly as possible once the programme is confirmed to try and allow for any delays through the postal system.

Thank you for your patience while our teams work to provide even cleaner tap water for your area. If you have any further queries about our work please get in touch on 0345 672 3723  quoting the project number from the letter, email or card you have received. We’ll be happy to help.

Looking after the water in your home

It's our job to get the water from it's natural source and safely to your home but there are things you can do to ensure that the water you drink, cook with and wash in is of the very best quality. You can find out more about looking after the water in your home.

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  • Our work begins with collecting water samples from specific points along our pipe network.  This involves opening valves or hydrants and filling sample bottles to help us monitor water quality and plan our future work effectively.  This will also help us to determine the most appropriate cleaning or refurbishment technique.

    We’ll also collect water samples along the network following our refurbishment or cleaning work taking place to ensure this has resulted in water quality improvements.

     

  • In some areas we’ll be replacing entire sections of water pipe.  We use a variety of construction methods, but in most instances this involves inserting new smaller diameter pipe inside the existing older pipe – a method known as slip lining which is quicker and less disruptive to the community and road users.

    In some areas we may need to completely remove sections of old pipe and replace with new pipe – a method known as open cut.  Unfortunately this can be more disruptive as we’ll need to open up larger areas of the ground so we can lay the new pipe, which may need traffic management or temporary road closures.

     

  • This work often takes place over night when there is less demand for water.  It involves using high pressure water jetting or opening hydrants to flush the pipes and remove the mineral deposits from the pipe network. As this is less disruptive and much quicker we can clean larger areas of our network.

  • We may use another method to clean the pipes which involves taking a section of pipe out of use and passing high pressure jets of air through to help remove mineral deposits. This may require interruptions to water supplies, but we’ll always give prior notification to any customers before any work takes place to provide the date and time when the water would need to be temporarily turned off. 

Advice to help if your water is discoloured

We’re really sorry if you experience any changes to the colour of your water. You can find advice on how to get things back to normal using the link below. 

Find out more