Northumbrian Water are using drones to help find and fix leaks across the North East.
Recent changing weather conditions has seen the region experience a mix of ice, snow, and freezing conditions alongside milder days and warmer temperatures.
As the temperatures freeze overnight the ground becomes very hard and then when the temperatures warm up slightly throughout the day, the ground becomes soggy and saturated. This causes a lot of movement in the ground and that’s when pipes crack, valves leak, and fittings become loose.
This increases the chance of leaks and bursts – meaning that the company’s leakage fixing teams have to work even harder to ensure water keeps flowing for customers.
In the past seven days Northumbrian Water’s leakage team have found and fixed over 300 leaks – three times the recent average amount.
Some leaks and bursts are appearing in rural hard-to-reach areas, and to help to help identify and tackle these types of bursts, the water company are using drones to cover large areas that would otherwise require leakage technicians to walk and check across fields looking for signs of water.
The drones are being flown along large stretches of pipe looking for bursts, and when one is found, it means the teams can easily locate it and get to the site quicker to complete a repair.
It helps avoid the need to physically drive onto land and into fields, reducing damaging land and disturbing livestock – while also helping to keep teams safe when investigating leaks that are harder to reach.
Jim Howey, Head of Water Networks at Northumbrian Water, said: “We use drones across our business for a variety of reasons, but this is the first time we have used them for detecting leaks in this way.
“It’s a great way for us to cover larger areas of land in a shorter time, meaning that we can spend more time on fixes and protect our precious water resources.”
The innovative new technique is just one of the many things that Northumbrian Water are doing to reduce leakage. Last year, the company announced they would be using satellite technology to detect underground leaks – using unique AI software modelling to spot subtle changes in soil or streets surrounding the pipe that could indicate escaping water.
Jim added: “At this time of year, we see a big rise in the amounts of bursts across the region – which leads to a rise in the demand for water.
“We have teams out and about 24/7 in order to find and fix bursts, but we can’t fix the leaks we don’t know are there.
“So, although we are using innovative techniques and deploying more leakage teams than ever before, we still value our customers’ help in reporting any leaks they see.”
To report a leak, visit – https://www.nwl.co.uk/report-a-problem/