Ascham Homes, the Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) which manages homes on behalf of Waltham Forest Council, chose Aston Group, the building services and facilities management company, to complete a major overhaul of the cold water systems at two 11-storey housing blocks in the East End.
Rayner Towers and Burrell Towers, in Albany Road, were previously served by water tanks on the roof of each building that were more than 40-years old, considered ‘end of life’ and no longer maintainable.
The solution proposed by Aston Group comprised replacing the tanks with a new, stand-alone, boosted pump room between the two blocks – a solution that required major groundworks and reconnecting with the mains Thames Water supply.
Gary Foley, mechanical contracts manager for Aston Group, says that in exposing the existing, incoming mains, they identified a number of leaks. He said: “There was a significant amount of water leaking from the old copper pipes that had seriously corroded.
“It meant running a new trench and installing plastic piping which is more environmentally friendly and less susceptible to damage.
“The new plastic pipes were laid on a bed of Thanet sand and then surrounded and compacted by further sand and soil to allow the pipes to be able to move and therefore avoid snapping. We had to dam the trench to stop it from refilling with the leaking water and washing away the sand,” Gary added.
“Water is run to the 11 floors in each block from the new boiler room, and to the four flats on each floor. It meant quite a bit of intrusive work that we had to complete with the minimum of disruption to residents, and make good any works by boxing-in and decorating to hide any of the new pipes installed.
“We have also installed a device on each floor that will allow the building’s owners to measure precisely the amount of water used by each flat if required at some point in the future.”
A major part of the project was also the physical removal of the old tanks. Gary said: “Since no ‘hot works’ were allowed in the towers, the old tanks had to be cut out and removed and this required considerable effort.”
Judith Page, director of property services at Ascham Homes, said: “Thanks to Aston Group, our residents now have a more reliable and efficient water supply that should last us another 40 years.”