Evening all

Anyone have any input for the following.

My place was connected to town gas and mains water around 1935, both were run in “water barrel” steel/iron pipe.
Same trench about 4 inches apart and buried about 500mm max ( it’s around 400mm nearer the point it enters the building) Later the gas was rerun by passing aplastic pipe through the old gas pipe and a water meter fitted.
There’s a weep in the incoming water pipe close to where it enters the house and ideally it all needs replacing back to the meter. However the existing burial depth and proximity to the gas make it all rather problematic.

If it follows the same route going down to 750mm risks going below the footings ( old barn spread brick off of chalk) plus gas pipe is very close.
I’ve dug down in 4 spots and located the gas and water pipes.( both are parallel to and within 400mm of the wall. Water pipe seems to be bitumen coated and in fair condition given its age.
A little wary of calling out waterboard just in case it opens a can of worms regarding proximity of the gas along with the shallow burial depth of the existing.
I’ve located a joint in the pipe , what are the chances of that undoing with a bit of heat and gentle persuasion? ( i could then connect a plastic pipe and run it into the house ( i’ve installed a duct to the correct depth for the entry point ))
Has anyone any recent dealings with gas/water utilities ? If so what sort of response have you had? It wouldn’t be impossible to reroute both in a loop away from the building and back in , but a huge amount of work i’d really rather not do at this point , plus no idea as to what costs i could be liable for from gas and water board ( trench within my boundary i can deal with).

Where is your meter? Looks like might be in the roadway? I would be inclined to dig out new trench and and replace the whole pipe with modern stuff from the water meter to the house. Could be an opportunity to choose where you want it entering the building. Doing it this way you can do most of the work without disruption to you current supply I would not be too concerned about the water board the fact you are laying a new pipe making improvements they tend to welcome. They will make the connection to the meter. You could put a larger bore pipe as replacement the billing is based on your pipe size which you will find somewhere on your bill. You may find it near your meter number. It might vary with water authority but it will usually be size 015. This is not the size from the meter to your house but the size from the main supply pipe to your meter. You can from the meter put whatever size you want. I replaced our pipe when we started the improvements to our house and learnt all of this from the water board. (I am with Welsh Water). It was they that recommended I put large bore in as we had about a 100 M run. I do not want to be alarmist but we had an issue with our previous house where we had settlement on one corner of the building and had it underpinned, The cause was a gas main had been moled under the drive during the time of a previous owner and had gone under a soil drain pipe fractured it and the leak caused the soil/sand to be washed from under the footings. So it would be best to put in a new supply given the age of the existing if only for this reason.

Managed to get hold of someone who’s pragmatic and practically minded , in my situation a reduced burial depth is acceptable, i just need to use something along the lines of “SHalloduct”, proximity of gas whilst not ideal is a historical ( and not uncommon) arrangement and as the new mdpe has been slid into the old iron gas pipe and there’s no sensible way of moving it ( especially given it’ll most likely run next to the meter and there’s no way the utility companies will change the arrangement).
Just a matter now of trying yo get hold of the appropriate department at my water provider, which is beginning to look like a mission in itself.

AFAIK you're responsible for the pipe on your land and the water company are responsible for the pipe/meter if its not on your land. On that basis can you replace the pipe to the boundary so any future failure of the old pipe is down to the water company to sort out?? If you let your water supplier know you think the pipe is failing and you're planning to replace your bit, they may come and do the bit to the meter so you can run your new pipe all the way to the meter?? Worth a try??

Good morning, again thanks for the replies, i obviously wasn’t too clear in my op, yes the whole pipe needs replacing , but i am /was hoping to put off the full replacement until a more conveneint time.

As stated above i’m responsible for the pipe on my property and can do that work, i’m not allowed to excavate outside my boundary or connect to the meter. If it were a lead pipe it’d generally be covered by at worst a modest fee. It’s not and as also stated above the water companies are mercenary in their charging these days.

The weep was on a branch that went to a garden tap, the pipe was rotten, i cut it back as close to the main as i could and bodged a plug to seal the pipe. It’ll be ok for a week or so. The barn used to be stables and i’d not be surprised if there are other t’s off the pipe.

I’d managed to speak to a water board crew via my plumber, who basically said if i get a jobsworth inspector the job will grow arms and legs , and the jobsworths are seemingly more numerous these days. They warned against contacting the water board as i’d have to give the address and it’d flag the property for an inevitable meter inspection and if the leak was detectable “ put me in the system”.

On the back of that i decided to run a new main from the house to a meter inside my boundary and connect to the old pipe. I’ve dug out under my boundary and only a foot or so out found the connection between the meter and my old pipe. ( apparently it’s usual for there to be a short tail my side of the meter, makes meter installation easier).
No indication of any issues that end of things, so plan is to connect a metre my side of the meter , with a loop in the pipe. Make sure that the new main is sound and connections good, give it a few weeks, identify the fitting on the meter tail and get the appropriate adaptor for the new main, and use the loop to get rid of the last section of metal pipe.

The waterboard website is a minefield that just sends you to an application page for works required, in my case as the meter is technically on the highway (due to their being a historically missing section of footpath) traffic management may be required and that 2k plus to start.

In the early 2000’s i had a connection to serve a building connected to 4 flats and new supplies to a new build of 4 flats. They were simplicity itself in comparison, one phone call, a very nice chap comes out , we went through what i wanted he came up with best solution, handed me some forms , filled them in, they came back with a reasonable quote, i agreed and paid, informed them when site was ready, they turned up and did it, the new build required tapping the main in the road way, traffic management was the van and half a dozen cones.

When did life get so complicated?

Thanks for that, should be part of every utility companies web site search results. I can now quite happily connect to the fitting i can see with no worries, expect it would be different if i had to excavate outside my boundary.