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SeriousPuppet t1_j2j4qg4 wrote

Reply to comment by Tyrion_toadstool in Water pipe robots could stop billions of litres leaking by Sariel007

Geez. Do you know the diameter of the main? Just curious. Trying to visualize how big it is and how big a crack/break would be to leak that much water.

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Shmeepsheep t1_j2jalc2 wrote

That's really not that much water if you've ever worked around utilities. It's about the equivalent of a half inch copper line.

From a quick googling a residential sprinkler system uses between 12-30 gallons per minute. So about half of what it takes to run a sprinkler system

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SeriousPuppet t1_j2jgjyh wrote

Wow. Then wouldn't the fixtures downstream (ie where the water ends up, faucets etc) notice a big drop in water pressure?

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Shmeepsheep t1_j2jgyk7 wrote

The farther you get from the source the lower the pressure will be. A home only really needs like 40psi to operate correctly and many times has 100+psi that needs to be reduced because of this.

Also a small leak is not going to noticeably drop water pressure in a 6" main

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Tyrion_toadstool t1_j2j7604 wrote

I do not. I remember it was an old main that I believe was made of metal. It was replaced entirely with a main of much smaller diameter made of an entirely different, modern material (I can't recall what, exactly). We were told the new main would perform as well as the old one, despite being smaller, and that seems to be the case as we noticed no difference in water pressure after it was installed.

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