Major Water Main Break in Bowness Area

[Zary's-Mustache]

I have a friend who does concrete. This was back when there were hardcore outside restrictions. He used the hose for a few minutes for dust control while they were packing the driveway.

Lady next door came out right away and started complaining. Fast forward a couple weeks and they pour the driveway and because of the water restrictions they couldn't power wash for exposed concrete the next morning. They had to call in sand blasters.

Guess who was knocking on the door and threatening to sue because of all the dust?

Sometimes people just love to complain.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by fotze2

I inherited a field in Fenn Big Valley. Entire gathering system was suiss cheese. Turns out the entire field was shut in for a year and a half due to their sales line failing. I was in charge of shutting it in again. There were five jobs on the line. Ran a bunch of liners, did some looping, nightmare. Engineers are the best at paying forward their fata ups to future ones.

There’s nothing they can do now to look good, this is 50 years of decisions and cuts.

Moron public thinks everything is set it and forget it. Concrete is the best and cheapest material in compression. Not so much in tension.

Where do you put rebar in a concrete beam? The top or the bottom or throughout?

This is more one bad product selection then 50 years of failure. They were just a year late with the inspection. It’s not like they were ignoring this forever.

Concrete still is used for water pipes. The older concrete still works well, the newer concrete works well.

[puffnstuff]

So I can borrow my neighbors kiddie pool, fill it and then dump it on my lawn?

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

So I can borrow my neighbors kiddie pool, fill it and then dump it on my lawn?

Yup that's legal.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

So I can borrow my neighbors kiddie pool, fill it and then dump it on my lawn?

I have to admit this is a little frustrating to fill up a watering can, from my faucet right next to the garden I want to water, but I am chalking it up to extra exercise.

[mrkajz44]

The mental gymnastics people are going through to try and avoid understanding the phase "don't waste water by watering your lawn" is fascinating

Sent from my VOG-L04 using Tapatalk

[monkeyman]

Originally Posted by Looch City

This is like the ####tiest pipe of all pipe or what?

1960's vintage oil pipes perform better.

It's premature to blame this on the pipe or the Engineers 50 years ago. The pipe and specifically the wires need to be properly maintained and cared for to avoid corrosion. If the wires corrode, they're going to fail, if the wires fail, the pipe will fail. Under normal circumstances the wires are shielded by a layer of cement. One of the things that compromises the cement protective layer is salt.
It really is going to take a third party evaluation to determine what went wrong here so we can avoid such failures in the future.

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

It's premature to blame this on the pipe or the Engineers 50 years ago. The pipe and specifically the wires need to be properly maintained and cared for to avoid corrosion. If the wires corrode, they're going to fail, if the wires fail, the pipe will fail. Under normal circumstances the wires are shielded by a layer of cement. One of the things that compromises the cement protective layer is salt.

Interesting that you mention salt. Seeing as these water mains are under roads, with 16th Ave being a large one, I am wondering how much the (now liberal) amounts of road salt applied whenever there is a skiff of snow plays into the concrete liner deteriorating?

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I've been noticing that people are starting to water their lawns. Just got home from walking the dog and several backyards had water going.

Anyone with irrigation has been watering over night the whole time. At least in my neighborhood

[GGG]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

It's premature to blame this on the pipe or the Engineers 50 years ago. The pipe and specifically the wires need to be properly maintained and cared for to avoid corrosion. If the wires corrode, they're going to fail, if the wires fail, the pipe will fail. Under normal circumstances the wires are shielded by a layer of cement. One of the things that compromises the cement protective layer is salt.
It really is going to take a third party evaluation to determine what went wrong here so we can avoid such failures in the future.

This particular generation of pipe though had higher tensile strength and reduced thickness and was designed to reduce cost. This version of the pipe had been discontinued due to premature failure.

There is no real way to maintain concrete pipe from external corrosion once buried. I think it’s reasonable given the age of this pipe to blame it. Essentially it’s monitoring for cable breakage and reline or replace.

The initial structural design requirements for the manufacturing of PCCP tended to be conservative with high safety factors. However, as experience with using this composite pipe and understanding of the behavior of PCCP increased, along with advances in material sciences, changes in the structural design of PCCP were made to reduce the cost of manufacturing.

The increase in the tensile strength of the wire during manufacturing in the late 1960s and early 1970s reduced the amount of prestressing steel wire and allowed wire of smaller diameter, which resulted in what appeared to be a more efficient design and economical manufacturing. These practices culminated in the 1970s when pipe utilizing Class IV wire and other cost saving measures were implemented in the manufacturing process.

Problematic Classes of PCCP

Pipe from the 1970s era started experiencing a high rate of premature failures. Subsequently, the engineering standards for PCCP began to improve, resulting in improved standards for PCCP. The major revisions in the standards, design, and manufacturing of PCCP consist of changes in the maximum diameter, the quality (strength) of the concrete, the thickness of the steel cylinder, prestressing wire standards (wire diameter, wrapping stress, spacing, etc.), and the thickness of the mortar coating.

https://www.xylem.com/en-ca/brands/p...der-pipe-pccp/

So I agree we need to wait for the report for finality on cause I think that the material of construction here is the problem.

[cam_wmh]

Are the Shouldice fields still flooded?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by cam_wmh

Are the Shouldice fields still flooded?

Lemme check...

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by GGG

This is more one bad product selection then 50 years of failure. They were just a year late with the inspection. It’s not like they were ignoring this forever.

Concrete still is used for water pipes. The older concrete still works well, the newer concrete works well.

I wonder how much reducing utilization/pressure would have helped delay/mitigate this? Because even if they detected the urgency of the problem, how long would a long term solution take? I suppose they could have just tried to patch hot spot after hot spot, but I'm not sure how viable that would have been given the restart procedure?

[Canadianman]

I'd like to think that I'm generally a rule follower. I cut back my water usage as much as feasible during the pipe repair. But I am no longer following the city's restrictions. It makes no sense, and they haven't adequately explained the need to keep restrictions in place.


The Glenmore treatment plant can pump out 500 Mega Liters (ML) of water a day. During the pipe repair, the city was averaging less than that in usage.


Now Bearspaw is back up and running, albeit at 50-75% capacity (can't get a firm number). Assuming 50%, that's another 250 ML of water we have to use.


Based on the numbers they were showing before, Calgary uses about 600 ML normally. But we have 750 ML being treated/piped across the city.


What are we restricting for?

[btimbit]

I think they just didn't want to risk stressing the system before the Stampede is over. Now that it is, I imagine restrictions will rapidly loosen

[Canadianman]

Originally Posted by btimbit

I think they just didn't want to risk stressing the system before the Stampede is over. Now that it is, I imagine restrictions will rapidly loosen

Isn't that why it's running at 50% capacity?

[PepsiFree]

Pretty simple. And the same as all restrictions.

We’re being forced restrict on penalty of death because they’re just liberal elites that are trying to control you, and by defying them, you are embracing freedom.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Pretty simple. And the same as all restrictions.

We’re being forced restrict on penalty of death because they’re just liberal elites that are trying to control you, and by defying them, you are embracing freedom.

First they came for our uncovered faces, then our water, next we'll be locked into open air prisons and we won't be allowed to leave our 15 minute cities

It's up to us to water our lawns and how them we won't bow down!

[GGG]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

I wonder how much reducing utilization/pressure would have helped delay/mitigate this? Because even if they detected the urgency of the problem, how long would a long term solution take? I suppose they could have just tried to patch hot spot after hot spot, but I'm not sure how viable that would have been given the restart procedure?

I think if you did repairs off peak season you could have done them with limited restrictions. April or October would have given you opportunities to do it with minimal disruptions I would think. So essentially you go in and do what we just did during peak water use time and spend a month fixing. If you did that annually you could probably reduce the risk of significant impact substantially.

I don’t know what the cumulative impact of all the pressure cycles would be though if you were shutting g it down regularly. Eventually it will need replacing. The other thing I wonder is how much of our main system was build between say 1965 and 1980 because from the look of it it would all be at risk.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Canadianman

I'd like to think that I'm generally a rule follower. I cut back my water usage as much as feasible during the pipe repair. But I am no longer following the city's restrictions. It makes no sense, and they haven't adequately explained the need to keep restrictions in place.


The Glenmore treatment plant can pump out 500 Mega Liters (ML) of water a day. During the pipe repair, the city was averaging less than that in usage.


Now Bearspaw is back up and running, albeit at 50-75% capacity (can't get a firm number). Assuming 50%, that's another 250 ML of water we have to use.


Based on the numbers they were showing before, Calgary uses about 600 ML normally. But we have 750 ML being treated/piped across the city.


What are we restricting for?

I think with no restrictions in summer we get to the 700-800 range but I agree with you that they should be sharing more detailed hydraulics to explain why there are still restrictions.