STREET MAINS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 140, 14 June 1924, Page 8

STREET MAINS

NINE MILES TO BE REPLACED

WHEN EVERYONE CHANGED FROM MONDAY.

A correspondent, writing from Kilbirnie, has complained of a shortage of water during certain hours in the morning, and his letter was referred to the | Corporation officials for explanation. [ Admittedly, the "Post" representative was informed, the supply was not as .efficient in some sections of the city and suburbs as it should be, but authority had been given some little time ago for the carrying out of service improvements in those areas, and the work was ' at piesent going ahead steadily. In past years many miles of three-inch mains had been laid in city streets, and, until the land served by those streets became thickly built upon, the service was ample. As buildings increase in number the draw-off, heaviest in the morning, became greater in proportion, and the small mains, becoming less efficient as a result of the friction offered the flow by interior corrosion, no longer served .1.5 they should. In many streets mains had since -been duplicated, generally by the .laying of additional four-inch pipes, but at the present time there were something like nine miles of three-inch mains not to-day giving as full a ser-' vice as was desirable. In all, almost a hundred streets in various parts of the city we to receive attention in that regard the three-inch pipes to be replaced by four-inch pipes, such as ■were at present being laid in streets in the vicinity of Mount Victoria The work would be carried out steadily, district by district, unless it was that particularly urgent work should be pointed out in some other section of the city in the meantime. '

Fo lowing upon a recent fire in Macdonald crescent. a report was made o the council by the Superintendent of the Lire Brigade, pointing out that a very_ unsatisfactory water pressure Was obtained.there for fire-fighting purposes to bring a lead from a considerable disttinre.

Theoretically, the volume of flow through a pipe increases as the square of the diameter; double diameter means four times the flow; but actually the increasei m flowis very much greater than this, for friction losses decrease remarkably m proportion to water flow as the diameter i s increased, so that while the theoretical increase (the theoretical ,flow being through mains which produce no friction .losses) the actual increase in flow is perhaps.six or sevenfold. Inc. state of household installations also has a considerable bearing upon the satisfactory or unsatisfactory, tap supP^y, for corrosion will take place in spite of all engineering precautions, in household pipes as in street mains, and tap dehvery falls, away in old houses, accordingly. ' As far as the particular complaint is concerned, special inquiries are to be made on the spot, for in that particular locality the service. is considered satisfactory.

The correspondent's letter calls to mind the complaint of a former writer from another part of Kilbirnie, by the way. At that time, about three years ago (the matter having sinco been put to rights) washing day on Monday was a continual worry, for the water would give out at about half-past ten. Tuesday was decided upon in the correspondent s household. Still no water. Back to Monday. Plenty of water. Every housewife in that street had come to the same decision—to wash on Tuesday.