Water and Waste approved products for water main installations
From 1 July 2019, City of Gold Coast (City) Water and Waste are introducing two changes to the approved products that can be used for water reticulation mains. These changes will affect Developer works on the Gold Coast.
Alternate products are being introduced to improve the durability and longevity of installed assets and to reduce the City’s ongoing maintenance costs.
1. Change 1 – Product ‘PVC-M’ will replace ‘PVC-O pipe’, which is no longer an approved product
Why the change?
- The wall thickness of ‘PVC-M’ is 6.8mm compared to 3.8mm for ‘PVC-O’, for a DN100 PN16 pipe.
- PVC-M pipe is less flexible and more robust than PVC-O pipe, which reduces the risk of leakage or failure at pipe joints.
- The thin wall thickness of PVC-O pipe causes problems for pipe installations such as;
- hard to chamfer the pipe end and easy to damage the rubber ring
- potential deformation at joints, and possible distortion as well as ‘pushing straight through the joint’.
2. Change 2 - Product ‘DICL pipe’ is the only approved product for Industrial and Commercial estates, and Road carriageways
Product ‘PVC-M PN20 pipe’ is no longer an approved product in the above applications.
Why the change?
- DICL pipe has a greater tensile strength than PVC pipe, and provides better protection against crush loading. DICL pipe provides greater impact resistance than PVC pipe.
- Scratches or gouges may cause a weak point in a PVC pipe. Weak points can go undetected and later result in failures of the water main.
- DICL pipe is not vulnerable to sunlight, whereas PVC pipe may experience a loss in strength when subjected to long-term exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight.
From 1 July 2019, ‘DICL pipe’ must be specified by consultants in the following applications:
2.1. New water main installations in Industrial and Commercial estates. The context in these applications is that when the estate is being developed, it is not known where the vehicle crossovers (VXO’s) will be located. Therefore, ‘DICL pipe’ must be specified for the water mains for the ‘full extent’ throughout the estate.
2.2. New water main installations in Road carriageways - DICL pipe must be specified whenever water mains are located in road carriageways (including road crossings).
2.3. New VXOs being constructed in Industrial and Commercial developments where there are existing water mains. If the existing water main is not DICL pipe, then the water main must be replaced with DICL pipe as part of the construction of the new VXO.
Timing of the changes
From 1 July 2019, Consultants are required to specify the approved materials (as per Change 1 & 2) when submitting water main OPW Design Plans.
These requirements will be updated shortly with the next revisions of the ‘SEQ Water Supply Code’, and ‘SEQ IPAM List’), available from seqcode.com.au.
Further information can be provided to you when you submit your next OPW Design Plan Submission, or at your next project pre-start meeting. If you have any queries please contact Construction Supervisor, Kyle Juelfs on (07) 5582 9824.
