with the various drought conditions around the UK, water companies reduce the pressure to save resources?

You think people might get bored waiting for water to come out of their taps and as a result use less ?

I guess that might work.

Water companies have to provide a certain amount of pressure through the mains or the get fined by the regulator. It’s known as DG 2 Director General standard 2.

Companies are required by law to provide water at a pressure that will, under normal circumstances, enable it to reach the top floor of a house. In order to assess whether they satisfy this requirement, companies are required to report against a reference level of ten metres head of pressure, at a flow of nine litres per minute. This should be sufficient to enable a 4.5 litre container (about the size of a small bucket) to be filled within 30 seconds. For ease of measurement, companies adopt a surrogate pressure (usually 15 metres head) in the adjacent water main serving the property.

You’re clearly underestimating how stupid people are. If the pressure is lower they won’t think about it intelligently and modify their behaviour to use less, they’ll modify their behaviour to compensate and probably end up using more.

If the pressure is lower they won’t think about it intelligently and modify their behaviour to use less

I would modify my behavior by waiting longer for a bucket to fill up with water. Not the correct behaviour I take it ? Only stupid people would do that ?

Why are you filling a bucket of water up? There’s a drought, stupid.

The water companies should be made to stop leaks – that would end the shortage overnight

Why are you filling a bucket of water up?

Because I want to wash my car. It’s not illegal you know, stupid.

TandemJeremy – Member
The water companies should be made to stop leaks – that would end the shortage overnight

you need to write to the WICS to express your view that the leakage level of the state owned Scottish Water needs to be improved so they can get the same improvement seen in England and Wales

with the various drought conditions around the UK, water companies reduce the pressure to save resources?

they have been doing it for years

That’s exactly the level of stupidity we’re talking about. People think a water shortage is someone else’s problem. That’s exactly what they’d say, it’s not illegal so why shouldn’t they do it?

…..the state owned Scottish Water needs to be improved so they can get the same improvement seen in England and Wales

My privately owned water company, Thames Water, pisses over 25% of its water into the ground through leakages – the highest in Britain I believe. And the tight-fisted money-grabbing bastards still managed to make over £200 million profit last year.

And were forced to spend £150 million on repairing those leaks…..

Thames Water, pisses over 25% of its water into the ground through leakages – the highest in Britain I believe

blame the local authorities and TfL, if you can’t dig the road up you can’t improve/ repair the assets

yeah right big and daft. 🙄

And were forced to spend £150 million on repairing those leaks…..

So they spent less in repairing leaks than they made in profit ?

I can’t see why they couldn’t just make just 50 quid profit and spend another £200 million on fixing leaks.

The hose pipe ban will save 5% water, they lose 5 times more than that through leakage.

for TJ

http://www.watercommission.co.uk/UserFiles/Documents/Staff%20paper%2010.pdf

state owned efficiency?

you can write to them here to express your disgust that Scotland’s leakage level is so high

http://www.watercommission.co.uk/view_How%20to%20complain.aspx

or post on Alan Sutherland’s Blog here

http://www.watercommission.co.uk/blogs/

They’re still a private business who needs to make a profit to continue to exist. Without shareholder returns they will lose investors and begin a spiral that could end fatally. Hosepipe bans are created because the water used for hosepipes is typically non-essential and it costs little to implement. Repairing leaks is hugely expensive and time consuming.

All water companies are monitored for leakage and the results every year have significant effect on how much profit they can make and how much they have to spend on making things better. No other private business in the country is controlled so tightly by the government in this way.

The hose pipe ban will save 5% water, they lose 5 times more than that through leakage

you will never have zero leakage, it’s essentially impossible.

compulsory metering of all customers and seasonal tariffs is as essential as reducing leakage levels

so that’s a no then?

in response to OP. Yes, pressure could be reduced. As mentioned above there is a minium required pressure but generally water pressure is higher than this at customer taps.

And if you think the solution to the problem is simply reducing leakage, you are looking at this in far to simple a fashion. That is one aspect of the whole issue. You could have 0 leakage, but as a customer you would need to pay more to acheive this, as surpsingly it costs a lot of money to dig holes in roads and replace pipes.

The water companies should be made to stop leaks – that would end the shortage overnight

They are, it wouldn’t, and that’s not the point.

Common sense, reason and a greater understanding of the subject have no place in a disagreement with TJ and Ernie. Not when they can stick it to the man! 😐

If things got that bad then they’d have stand pipes in the street or tanker in water as they did in 1976. During the Yorkshire drought of the 1990s things were so bad that large scale evacuations were considered, but given the disruption involved, bringing water to the people rather than people to the water was found to be the most logical solution.

Having been through the aftermath of the Gloucestershire floods in 2007, it’s amazing how quickly you adapt to there being no water out ofthe taps. The logistics operation by Severn Trent and the Army was incredible and must have cost a fortune though.

Severn Trent and the Army Armed Forces

FTFY 😀

No I still piss like a race horse

TooTall – fair enough, I did wonder. Good work by all of ’em 🙂

If things got that bad then they’d have stand pipes in the street or tanker in water as they did in 1976

that is an idea, but unlikely to actually happen. can you imagine people watining patiently for water like back then? Not really a practical option any more.

Well the provison of bottled water in the 2007 floods seemed for the most part to go well…

so stopping the 25% of water that is lost thru leaks would make no difference? yeah right.

They are being forced to repair them? – yes gentle pressure that they are kicking and screaming from under.

The 200 million profit should have been used to stop leaks. The governments should force them to do so. They have enough water – they just waste 1/4 of it.

can you imagine people watining patiently for water like back then? Not really a practical option any more

Like ohnohesback said, yes I can, ‘cos I’ve seen it in action.

I’m not saying it wouldn’t make any difference, of course it would.

And they are mandated to reduce leakage. Maybe greater pressure should be applied, but iof they didn’t make any profit, they would have no investors, so there’d be less money to fix leaks…

The point is that blaming the water companies will not fill the reservoirs. There is not a lot of water so it’s everyone’s responsibility to use what there is responsibly.

Reducing the leakage down to 0% would probably triple your water rates and make driving in any city impossible for the next 5 or 6 years.

They have enough water – they just waste 1/4 of it.

I think they don’t though TJ, it hasn’t really rained properly for a couple of years now down south, I guess the water companies should/could repair stuff, but it’s also true that it’s wrong to use drinking water for washing your car.

And they are mandated to reduce leakage. Maybe greater pressure should be applied, but iof they didn’t make any profit, they would have no investors, so there’d be less money to fix leaks…

The money comes from the consumers. The shareholders take money out not put it in

Billions of pounds in profits removed from the system. Just imagine if that all went into repairs?

Or water storage…

Cue all the people who crow when it’s sunny in London demanding that the water in the North West be delivered to them.

As someone recently said, if they want the water, they can have the clouds as well.

Or the damp North could have the unsustainable urbanisation planned for the parched South-East…

My privately owned water company, Thames Water, pisses over 25% of its water into the ground through leakages

Where it goes back to where they got it from in the first place anyway….

so stopping the 25% of water that is lost thru leaks would make no difference? yeah right.

They are being forced to repair them? – yes gentle pressure that they are kicking and screaming from under.

The 200 million profit should have been used to stop leaks. The governments should force them to do so. They have enough water – they just waste 1/4 of it.

Do you have a figure to hand for what it would cost to fix every leak in the TW region? I’d hazzard a guess it’s a f***load more than £200million. So either bills have to go up (which they’re not allowed to do), or profits go down (which they were forced to do).

As for shareholders only taking money out of the system……..

If there was no profit, there would be no shareholders, if there were no shareholders the company would be esentialy worthless, if it’s worthless then it can’t borrow money from the bank as it has no asset to borrow against (because you’ve deemed it’s asset worthless as its not profitable).

Bessides, £200million isn’t a big profit, there’s ~9million households in the TW region, so let’s say a nice round 20million people. £10 of the south easts water bill was profit, hardly extortion is it?