Protecting our drinking water pipes
On behalf of Upper Hutt City Council, we are working on a project to increase the life of our drinking water pipes.
If you have any questions about this work, please contact:
Wellington Water, 04 912 4400
Our crews are working in the Fergusson Drive/SH2 Intersection area, excavating down to the water main pipe from Monday the 23 January to the 3 March 2023. Hours of work will generally be 8:00pm – 5:00am Monday to Friday.
What are we doing?
We're installing monitoring test points and 30m ground beds to keep an eye on our cathodic protection system.
A cathodic protection system is where we install anode ground beds and transformer units connected to the steel bulk watermain pipe. These anodes corrode in place of the pipe to protect it from the corrosion that occurs between pipe minerals and soil. This stops the pipe from rusting and can extend its life by up to 50 years.
Why do we need to do this?
Three waters (drinking water, wastewater, and storm water) assets are uniquely challenging to manage. They are underground, many are old, near or past the end of their economic lives and we live in a region where the ground beneath our cities is on the move.
Despite that, our water services have generally been reliable. But their ongoing reliability cannot be taken for granted, as our assets are vulnerable to failure when reaching the end of their lives.