Thursday, June 30, 2011

Aquamain and the pipe that's really a sieve

Yesterday I was at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol for most of the day with my mother, who had an accident at home over the weekend. Thankfully no further treatment was required.

Just a small query: why don't they have WiFi in the waiting rooms?

This morning Aquamain came round to fix the leak in our water supply pipe just outside the house. They located the leak by injecting a mix of Nitrogen and Hydrogen into the pipe and detecting where it surfaced. After digging a big hole next to the path, they triumphantly cut out and exhibited the damaged segment. It looked like something you see from a diseased heart: all corrosion and a small hole like it had been pierced by a nail.

As soon as the water was switched back on three fountains erupted from an adjacent length of pipe: the whole length has succumbed to old-age from its fifty years of lying in the clay. So now we will have to have the whole lot yanked out and replaced by plastic. I doubt we'll have much, if any, change from a thousand pounds.

I wonder what news Friday will bring?