Author: vicplas

A duct route that looked straightforward on the services drawing has a way of turning complicated at utility submission. The depth gets queried, the formation does not match what the authority expects, or the product specified turns out to be certified for a different application from the one it is going into. None of these is hard to avoid, and all of them are far easier to settle before the trench is open. Underground ducting sits awkwardly for specifiers because no single authority owns it. Depth of cover in a public street is LTA territory, the incoming supply arrangement answers to...

Handover snagging lists from tall residential blocks have a habit of repeating one complaint: a smell in the bathroom on the upper floors that nobody can locate. The pipework passes its tests. The traps are full when anyone checks. Yet the complaint keeps coming back, usually on the floors immediately below a stack offset or near the top of the building. What is happening is almost always a pressure problem, not a leak. Water falling down a stack drags air with it, and that moving air produces suction ahead of the flow and positive pressure behind it. If the system cannot...