Professional Valve Condition Assessment in Australia

Water utilities should develop programs to regularly undertake valve condition assessment and maintenance to improve organisational knowledge about their valve inventory.

Broken, closed, missing or seized valves can significantly impact water main failure events that require emergency shutdown. Better water network knowledge and asset intelligence are critical for the management of these disruptive events. Other reasons why a valve condition assessment should be undertaken are to:

• Reduce the risk of injuries to field staff who operate seized valves
• Increase confidence that critical valves are accessible & in good working condition, reducing the time to undertake reactive repair works
• Limit the number of customers interruptions during a water main burst or other network outages
• Confirm the status of valves & provide this information to a hydraulic model to obtain more accurate insights

Understanding the condition of your critical valves enhances your ability to control water flow within the distribution system effectively. It also allows you to extend valve life and quickly locate valves in the field when operation is required. Valve condition assessment enables:

• A complete inventory of distribution system valves & mapped with high accuracy using our specialist GPS-enabled field equipment
• More efficient future shut down of water mains during burst events or reactive maintenance minimising the customer impact & damage to nearby property
• More insight into future CAPEX & OPEX requirements to improve valve operations & network reliability
• Greater confidence in Consequence of Failure (CoF) & Likelihood of Failure (LoF) studies
• Locating buried valves & improving access by removing debris from valve spindles
• Exercising of seized valves maintaining asset health
• Identification of broken valves
• Identification of closed valves & determination of clockwise/anti-clockwise closing orientation
• Correctly identifying valve type (for example: scour valves that may be incorrectly shown as isolation valves)
• Extension of asset life by exercising of valves until the torque required to operate is reduced

We use a range of specialised equipment to undertake our valve condition assessment and fire flow testing works.

Using fire hydrant testing to understand the condition of your hydrants allows minimal interruption when they are required at critical times. It is also important that, in times of need, these critical water assets can deliver the required pressures and flow rates to local regulations and standards. We utilise smart technologies to undertake hydrant inspections and assessments, leveraging the power of GIS integration solutions such as ESRI ArcGIS and Trimble Water. Other aspects of our hydrant inspections are:

• Fire hydrant testing
• Hydrant pressure & flow testing
• Minor maintenance activities such as painting, removal of sediment, installation of marker pegs/reflective cats eyes
• Major maintenance activities such as repair or removal of yokes, spring ball, riser or tee (including developing shutdown plans or undertaking customer notifications)
• Water mains cleaning
• Capturing photographs & GPS data for integration into Asset Management Systems
• Locating missing or covered hydrants
• A full hydrant asset inventory using Trimble Unity or ArcGIS

We can also provide active leak detection, pipeline condition assessment or water loss management solutions.

Proactive valve condition assessment can assist with worker health and safety. Workplace health and safety is the biggest priority of most water utilities in Australia and New Zealand. Undertaking a valve condition assessment program enhances the safety of your field teams since the mechanical operation of valves will significantly reduce the risk of valve operator injuries. Improve the safety of your teams by implementing a structured valve condition assessment program.

Valve condition assessment and hydrant flow testing projects are very beneficial for identifying and repairing discrepancies in enterprise datasets. If you want to improve your water network performance, reduce customer impacts and increase operational reliability, contact us today to discuss our valve and hydrant condition assessment options throughout Australia and New Zealand.

With offices across Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, we provide services to meet your water network management needs. If you are unsure whether we can reach you, get in contact with us, and we’ll let you know whether we can help.