OT: Gas main replacement

[Caecilius]

A bit OT, but I bet some of you chaps will know something about this.

There's been gas main replacement work going on in my area for about five years. It seems like every major road is being done, and it must be costing an absolute fortune.

The old iron gas mains are being replaced by yellow plastic pipes.

Does anyone know if this is a national project, and why there seems to be such a rush to get it all replaced? Surely the old mains won't all be coming to the end of their useul life at the same time?

I'm in the medway towns in case it's a regional thing.

[jgharston]

Maybe they're cashing in the old pipes? The BT telephone network is worth more as scrap metal than the company itself ;)

JGH

[Tim Watts]

Pembury was (and still is I think) being done (2 blokes, several years) - that's in Kent too and not so far from Medway.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I would imagine its more of a situation that some particular main has been inspected and judged to be unsafe, and the whole budget is going on replacing it.

There is a tendency to - ibn saner companies who do cost analysis - completely refurbish a whole section than just path repair it. It is cheaper in the long run.

[Andrew Gabriel]

A lot of gas is lost from the old mains which predate natural gas, as natural gas has caused some of the joints to fail. So there is a national replacement programme which has been running for decades. I would guess they give priority to areas where the gas might leak into premises, and where people report smelling it.

[Tim Streater]

Yes. They had to replace all the mains in Geneva for this reason: the old mains had their joints sealed IIRc with rope, because coal gas was moist, so the ropes expanded and sealed the joints. Natural gas is dry and would dry out the joint.

[charles]

we had ours done about 15 years ago, but they are doing Guildford town at the moment.

[charles]

here, they left the ond ones in place.

[tony sayer]

In article , Caecilius scribeth thus

They've been buggering around with a Gas main in East Road Cambridge for ages now, seem to keep finding "odd faults" with it. Seems to me that they'd be best off closing it and renewing the whole lot in one hit;!...