COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF LUCAN AREA COMMITTEE

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

QUESTION NO. 29

QUESTION: Councillor G. O'Connell

To ask the Manager if all of the water pipes in Council management within this Area Committee's electoral area, that froze over during last winters big freeze have been attended to so that the same will not happen again should we have the severe winter expected again this year?

REPLY:

All of the burst watermains were attended to last winter. 

Last winter there were 245 reports of frozen services throughout the County, 41 of which were in the Lucan area.  Typically frozen services are a result of services being laid too shallow and the Council's Specifications for the Laying of Watermains and Drinking Water Supply states that services should be laid to a depth of at least 450mm.  It is apparent that developers have not complied with the depth requirement in many cases and we have advised many householders that where possible they should take this up with their developer.   

In 2011 the Water Section has to date lowered 46 stopcocks that were installed too shallow, 6 of which were in the Lucan area.  There are hence 199 still on the list (35 in Lucan area) and we are attending to these as resources allow.  It is unlikely we will be able to attend to all of these services before next winter.  It should be noted that in a typical house the service pipe is mostly private as it is mostly within the boundary of the house in the driveway or front garden.  We have found that if the builder of the house has laid the service in the public area too shallow they have more than likely laid the service too shallow in the driveway and hence even when the Council carries out the works to lower the service in the public area, unless the property owner carries out similar work within their property the service will still freeze.