Low water pressure/water might go off later

[Jamma]

God I hate Thames Water. It astounds me the number of times the water has gone off since I've lived in East Dulwich, at least once a year and 2009 is no different.

We're in Etherow Street and currently got low water pressure and have just spoken to THames Water who tell me that the main has been shut off since around 4pm. They hope to have it fixed within 6 hours but from bitter experience I know the Thames Water concept of time is quite different to real time.

Anyway, they advised me to fill some pans etc in case the supply goes off altogether later so figured I'd pass that on.

[Stevie_34]

It's not actually Thames Water's fault. Any physicist will tell you that it's the weather! If you had walked around London you would have seen quite a few burst pipes and water streaming out overground, coming from underground....There was even a main burst in Herne Hill I heard....don't quote me on that though....

Anyway what happens, is that we had 7 days of weather where the temperature was nearly constantly around freezing, so the water in some pipes froze , and then when it melted it expanded , thus some pipes burst etc....I'm guessing the low pressure/no pressure might be because of this....

If anybody wants to check if the area in which they live is effect by this, feel free to check out Thames Water's website here

[Jamma]

Our water has gone off winter, spring, summer and fall. Every time Thames Water fail to give any warning that they're about to shut off supplies and fail to accurately predict when the water might come back on.

They are, if you'll pardon the pun, a shower.

[HonaloochieB]

Thank Christ I had the foresight to stock up the fridge with Peroni.

[andycawdell]

Stevie - guys doing the burst in Elland Road on Sunday said that it was not so much water freezing in the pipes as water freezing in the soil around the pipes and splitting the old cast iron pipes laid down here in 1890 or so

They went on to say lots of burst and leaking pipes could come from lots of soil / ground movement for other reasons than freezing - e.g. heavy traffic on roads not designed for them

[kristymac1]

'then when it melted it expanded, thus some pipes burst etc '

Water expands when it freezes rather than when it melts, as any physicist will tell you......

[Caron]

Bloody pipes. I also believe that water expands when it FREEZES rather than melts, but my hubby now tells me that water expands between 0 degs and 4 degs but he's quite often wrong so let's just ignore that.

[KalamityKel]

OMG! 6 hours with no water? Blimey anyone would think we were in a third world country!