Water conservation and managing leaks
Council's takes a proactive approach to reduce network leaks
Council monitors water moving through each network to identify trends in network water loss. Council recieves weekly reports on the minimum night flows (MNF) for each water supply. Council uses the reports to identify any urgent repairs needed as well as prioritise areas for targeted leak detection.
Each year we sweep targeted areas of our 460kms of pipe network for leaks and repair what we find. More information about the results of these activities can be found in the annual water conservation reports found here:
One example of the benefits of the active monitoring:
Council water use monitoring pays off with big leak repair
In late April 2016, Council noticed an increase in night flows in the Paraparaumu network. Increases in night flows usually happen due to leaks (usually most people are asleep at this time).
Council identified the leak was somewhere in the Riwai Zone, an zone of some 70km of the Paraparaumu water network. Staff then developed a targeted approach to locating the cause of the increasing night flows.
The size of the leak meant it was likely from a fault on one of the larger distribution water pipes. Council staff, working with a specialist leak detection contractor spent the next few weeks systematically working through the zone to locate the leak.
On the 19th May a large noise was detected at the corner of Arawhata and Kāpiti Road, on one of the busiest roads in the district.
Following its repair, night flows returned to normal and the size of the leak was quantified. Just before its repair, the leak was running at 1,900,000 litres/day, which is enough to fill the aquatic centre main pool each day.
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