* UPDATE: I have just had a call from Thames Water – the shutdown will happen on Monday the 19th…
MEMBERS of my community here in Mill Street, Oxford, received a letter from Bob Collington OBE, operations director of Thames Water.
This letter, reproduced below, is slightly alarming for a number of reasons. The first is that the “interruption to your water supply” will happen on Tuesday the 19th of August 2013 between 10AM and 4PM. Tuesday is not the 19th of August – it is the 20th of August.
Realising the anomaly, I decided to call up the 0845 number to ask what gives. 0845 costs, of course. Talked to a very nice chap who said that basically Thames Water had screwed up and I’d have to talk to another nice chap on another 0845 number in the morning.
Spoke to another nice chap. He said yeah it was a cockup and the interruption happens on Tuesday the 20th of August. I asked why. He said: “There are very few details on the file. But we’re changing the iron pipes to copper pipes on the estate.” He asked if I had iron pipes. I said, I dunno, haven’t dug up the front to find out.
I know some people round here. A few of them have had similar letters from Thames Water. I asked if Thames Water was going to clarify the cockup so they knew when the famous “interruption of service” is actually going to happen. No, said the nice chap. If they need clarification they will have to individually and severally contact Thames Water on the 0845 number.
You can email Bob at this address and I will be asking him to refund the money I’ve spent on behalf of my neighbours, all probably just as confuzzled as I am. ♥
It’s reassuring to think that any locals on kidney dialysis (see penultimate paragraph of the letter) are in such safe hands….
All they use in my US neck of the woods is the heavy PVC pipe, and they put this in all new construction. I wonder why TW is sticking with copper. Most all government entities and service monopolies have both a local no- charge number and a toll-free Long Distance number. I can’t imagine why the UK would be so different. It all sounds a bit dodgy. I remember copper, but don’t believe I’ve been exposed to much iron pipes. Still that’s better than when they used so much Lead. You know Lead is basically what killed Beethoven; when he sickened from the exposure, they used more Lead to treat him.
Yeah, I did wonder about that myself. Still, I will be aroun d on Monday now we know it’s not Tuesday, and I’m intrigued that the Victorians installed iron pipes rather than lead, and why any entity in its right mind thinks that copper pipes carrying drinking water is good for your health, too. Cu!