Water pipe project moves along swiftly
WELTEVREDENPARK - Pavements reinstated to their previous state during water articulation system upgrade project.
WELTEVREDEN PARK – The water articulation system upgrade in the suburb is now nearing completion.
Community liason officer Jan von der Hyde said that the purpose of this lengthy project is to replace the aged concrete asbestos pipes with new 110mm plastic pipes.
“The reason why we had to do this is because water pipes kept on bursting almost monthly because they were unable to handle the pressure of the growing population in the suburb,” Von der Heyde explained.
In order to replace all of these pipes, the workers had to dig up driveways that ran from Rooihout to Peperboom Avenue.
“This sounded very simple at first, but we had to take photos of how the driveways looked before the project started, and then we had to reinstate the driveways to their previous states after replacing the water pipes.”
He said that one of the driveways in Rooihout Avenue was damaged by a TLB (tractor loader backhoe) machine after it left deep grooves in the paving. “This posed a challenge as we were unable to polish out the marks, but luckily, the pavement contractor came up with a solution to turn the damaged bricks around and use the side that was under on top.”
The second upgrade that the suburb will receive is new fire hydrants. “The old hydrants were not maintained and some of them were overgrown and if a fire had to break out, then emergency services would not have been able to access these hydrants. We have decided to install a new hydrant every 60 metres – this will hopefully make it easier for the emergency services to access.”
Von der Hyde explained further that the hydrants stand 1.8 metres tall and each one will be marked clearly.
“We are currently testing these hydrants on 18-Bar pressure to ensure that there are no leaks and we are also installing pressure relieving valves that will cut off the water supply if it goes over a certain pressure that might damage the hydrant.”
He concluded and said that the project should be completed in September and that residents can feel free to give him a call if they have any issues during the upgrade project.
Details: Jan von der Hyde 071 452 8115.
