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BDCS

  • Posts: 4777
Re: Drought warning
« Reply #20 on: March 16, 2012, 09:46:17 pm »
I wrote to my MP last night asking why I cannot work as they did let me the last time there was a hose ban

M W.

  • Posts: 149
Re: Drought warning
« Reply #21 on: March 17, 2012, 01:25:04 pm »
 ::) be rea ssured . by all accounts its gunna p down, so divent fret.
after reading all posts understand drought/hose pipe bans are a big issue down the country
more so than up here. apologise for my naivity.  :-[

Roger Oakley

Re: Drought warning
« Reply #22 on: March 17, 2012, 02:50:13 pm »
::) be rea ssured . by all accounts its gunna p down, so divent fret.
after reading all posts understand drought/hose pipe bans are a big issue down the country
more so than up here. apologise for my naivity.  :-[

MW
It is a big issue down here in the south & south-east, Water companies stances are not all the same even down here which is why there is the confusion. Couple of us on here are trying to find out what the hell is going on and are in contact with the water companies that will effect us.

Nice to see someone say I didn't know it is such an issue and not that you needed to, apologise, Now that makes a change.  Have a good weekend.

trevor perry

  • Posts: 2454
Re: Drought warning
« Reply #23 on: March 17, 2012, 03:24:48 pm »
as noted this doesnt apply to all of us as only parts of country are affected but this could soon change so surely it would be wise for everyone to takes an interest in this subject and do what we can to help the ones that are affected, if this situation was to go country wide then it will have a major impact on most people on this forums business so Roger and Mike let us know how we can help ie sign a petition or send a letter etc , also is the federation of window cleaners doing anything about this situation yet.
better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove any doubt

Matt Gibson

  • Posts: 2482
Re: Drought warning
« Reply #24 on: March 17, 2012, 07:43:05 pm »
Yeah I'm with Trevor. Made a comment earlier, bit in bad taste, bit like MW in that I didn't realize it was so serious.  So anything we can do, give us a shout.

Roger Oakley

Re: Drought warning
« Reply #25 on: March 17, 2012, 08:13:50 pm »
Trevor & Matt,

Thanks for the replies, I am trying to find out as much as I can, and hopefully have some sort of result later this week, and I think Mike is doing the same.

Maybe if a few more people took an interest in what is a real issue instead of burying there heads in the sand and woke up to real issues instead of blah blah blah, I think you get my drift.
Yep maybe Fed of WC could put some weight behind this, as we pressure washers have no fed or union or whatever you would want to call it, all down to the individuals to get info.

Maybe time to get some sort of body behind pressure washing and have it viewed in a different light.

Matt Gibson

  • Posts: 2482
Re: Drought warning
« Reply #26 on: March 17, 2012, 09:06:22 pm »
Would the idea of a standalone federation for the pressure washing industry be of interest to you guys? I was thinking about this today after the whole drought topic. What would you like to see as part of it? Obviously it would put alot more weight behind something like the drought/business use argument.

mike roberts

Re: Drought warning
« Reply #27 on: March 17, 2012, 10:10:45 pm »
Appreciate your comments .. as for federation maybe too late.  If it was to be based on anything like the 'National window cleaners' total waste of time.

I had the impression, that this forum was frequented by some 'big players' interesting to note not one has made a remark about the hose pipe ban.

Why is that ?

BDCS

  • Posts: 4777
Re: Drought warning
« Reply #28 on: March 17, 2012, 11:07:50 pm »
You seem to be under some misconception that the government gives a poop about a few pressure washers - they don't. The government recently made the sewage providers adopt private sewers and laterals - dyno rod were on the steering group and guess who got the contract for them all  ::) The games will flood the SE with immigrants, some of which will go back but how much water will they use while they are here ? The water companys surely don't want a hose ban because they will sell less, they will just want to extract more from the rivers to top up the resivoirs. WE write to our mp's who will send a standard letter saying they are deeply concerned about or plight and have forwarded the letter and that we might hear back from them in October. My tax return will reflect my downturn in earnings I'm sure.
My mp is called Mike Hunt I think

mike roberts

Re: Drought warning
« Reply #29 on: March 18, 2012, 08:21:00 am »
You seem to be under some misconception that the government gives a poop about a few pressure washers - they don't. The government recently made the sewage providers adopt private sewers and laterals - dyno rod were on the steering group and guess who got the contract for them all  ::) The games will flood the SE with immigrants, some of which will go back but how much water will they use while they are here ? The water companys surely don't want a hose ban because they will sell less, they will just want to extract more from the rivers to top up the resivoirs. WE write to our mp's who will send a standard letter saying they are deeply concerned about or plight and have forwarded the letter and that we might hear back from them in October. My tax return will reflect my downturn in earnings I'm sure.
My mp is called Mike Hunt I think

Where did you get that from ? I will ignore the lazy immigrants crap - I thought you was too young for the daily mail. On actually bothering to speak with Veolia (thats not a go at yourself - but the majority of wcs) it appears they are in dire straights, did you know next yr they have plans a foot to cut of water domestic, and resort to hydrants / bowsers!
Hose pipe ban is easy to implement, again its lazy recent stats it saved aprox 5%, Veolia didnt have a clue by including businesses the back lash they would receive hence they dont have the answers to our questions - all of which are pretty basic.
This whole problem has been caused via massive lack of forward thinking by themselves and a lack of investment in new technologies. You can put this down to privatisation but what did labour do to change things - f**k all.  We all know or should be awarel 1/5 of all treated water is lost via leaks (Thames is a 1/4) every local water company to myself have failed to acheive targets set by Ofwat. They have been served small fines.
Contacting Mps is just a tiny kick we are also contacting local media bla blah.... as posted above its now down to individual companies to plead their cases with Veolia (If they can be bothered!) If that doesnt work its goodbye.
You might be able to tell f**king angry about whole situation, again personally for me we are f**ked due to someone elses failings, the other companies continue to declare huge profits - somes this country up

You will be pleased to know this is my last post on here

BDCS

  • Posts: 4777
Re: Drought warning
« Reply #30 on: March 18, 2012, 10:56:16 am »
Why go ? I'm flattered you think I'm young  ;D I'm an ex miner that saw through the 84/85 strike and don't read any newspaper.

Matt Gibson

  • Posts: 2482
Re: Drought warning
« Reply #31 on: March 18, 2012, 11:41:15 am »
the 84/85 strike

I was 6  ;D


Mike, i can understand why your angry, i would be raging if it was me and yeah most people on here arent interested as its not affecting them, but you have good banter..so dont go :-*

Rob_Mac

Re: Drought warning
« Reply #32 on: March 18, 2012, 12:43:52 pm »
I don't get involved in anything until I know the facts, does this directly affect me, no, not at the moment but it has the potential to affect half of my works, at some stage.

Because I (Mike) was up against a brick wall (that I (Mike) couldn't see around) I would not turn on my peers, you have no idea what is being done behind the scenes.

In my opinion you have made yourself look like a child, who has spat his dummy out because he couldn't rally everyone on the forum to the cause.

I have had a look at your website Mike and to say that your business is solely reliant on domestic pressure washing is against what your website says.

Business will always throw curved balls and it is how you deal with the issues that come your way that will determine your success or not.

To rant that you are finished when you have options to move into other services till the issue is over (for this year) or to attempt to be the spokesperson that converses with the various water boards, to try and make sure that it affects your business less. You could have used the energy that you put into skipping round the forum like a headless chicken into forming  a consortium of names but you have to remember that half of the people on here don't run their businesses like they should and don't want to rock the boat and make themselves a target and as Matt says others couldn't care less as they are not affected.

I empathise with you and anyone else in the areas affected, I potentially could be one of them but I am already working on alternative revenue streams to minimise turn over disruption.

You, like everyone else had the warning, there has been no investment in desalination processing of sea water and there has been no rain, the water boards may have not done anything and are only thinking about profits before investment but that is business, despite what you think of it.

The water tables have shown significant reductions over the last few years and with no biblical rain forecasts due I am confident in expecting this to be an ongoing issue, not just this year but for more to come.

It is easy to blame someone else but your attitude stinks.

I don't care if you aren't on the forum, that will be your loss.

My business (if affected) will get through this problem by adapting and putting things in place to minimise future losses, it may be affected this year but won't be next year.

I would like to know who the industry movers and shakers are on here who have been silent because the reality of it is that it is a cleaning forum for small businesses (some larger than others) who are individuals and in it for themselves.

Stop bleating and look for ways around the situation!

Rob ;D

Rob_Mac

Re: Drought warning
« Reply #33 on: March 18, 2012, 01:16:49 pm »
I have copied and pasted the below, I did some work on a store in Beckton at the end of last year and didn't know about this.

The first large-scale desalination plant to turn seawater into drinking water for homes and businesses in the UK will open today in the latest sign of growing concern about water stress in the country's most populated regions.

Although the technology is more normally associated with parched places such as the Middle East and Australia, the south-east of England – where the plant is located – has less rainfall per person than Istanbul, Dallas or Sydney.

Thames Water has spent £250m building the plant and pipes, and has said that the equipment will only be turned on at times of drought, when it can supply up to 1 million people.

During a protracted planning case against the opposition of former London mayor Ken Livingstone, Thames Water claimed that London and the surrounding region faced "a high risk of sever water shortages" unless the plant was allowed to go ahead.

However opponents have claimed that the plant will use too much energy and the company should be doing more to stop leaking pipes and reduce the average water use of customers by installing more water meters and better promotions.

Concern that the company will start using the plant more often have also been fuelled by subtle changes in their literature: initially the plant would be used "during times of drought", but later that became "mainly during times of drought".

Elsewhere, water industry experts have speculated that Thames Water could in the long-term connect the desalination plant directly to the next-door Beckton sewage plant, in east London, to produce recycled water. The recycling process uses similar technology and is usually cheaper than desalting water, but has so far been too unpopular to be accepted by homes anywhere in the world except the Namibian capital Windhoek.

In a sign of the pressure Thames Water could face if it tried to increase use of the Beckton desalination plant, the Environment Agency's head of water, Ian Barker, yesterday said: "Although the Beckton desalination plant will help to provide London with secure water supplies during times of drought and peak demand, we all must do more to reduce water consumption. The Environment Agency believes that metering should be rolled out to households in water-stressed areas. The water industry must also continue to manage leakage from its network of pipes."

Since the Beckton plant was first proposed in 2004, Thames Water has made repeated attempts to reassure critics, including promising that 100% of the energy used by the desalination works – which by desalting the briny water in the Thames estuary rather than water from the deep seas will use considerably less energy than normal plants – will come from "renewable" biofuel, made from plants. Following concern about the energy required to grow some fuel crops, the company has also suggested that in future it will try to use waste cooking fat and oil from the capital's restaurants and homes.

The company, which in the last financial year made pre-tax profits of £435m on income of £1.6bn, has also said that although it has been ahead of its targets to fix leaking pipes, the disruption of speeding up the programme could bring the city to "gridlock", and that efficiency campaigns have led to reductions in water use but it does not believe that alone they will "provide the scale of savings needed".

In the midst of its planning struggle, the company also said it had considered other options to help the capital cope with rising population and the increasing risk of dry summers because of climate change. "While desalination uses more energy than conventional water treatment, the lack of alternative freshwater resources means that all the options had to be considered," it said in a statement. "Desalination actually uses less energy than some of the other schemes we examined."

The company has also said it has designed the systems to take water from the river and return the briny waste on the outgoing tide to minimise the risk to wildlife.

So far Britain's only desalination facilities have been limited to individual buildings, like the Millennium Dome, or small plants to top up agricultural or public supplies in Jersey and the Isles of Scilly. In recent years, Southern Water has also said it will look at building a coastal desalination plant near Brighton on the south coast of England.

Rob ;D

Rob_Mac

Re: Drought warning
« Reply #34 on: March 18, 2012, 01:25:30 pm »
Some more


Reliable fresh water supplies from challenging water sources

The world's water consumption rate is doubling every 20 years, outpacing by two times the rate of population growth. It is projected that by the year 2025 water demand will exceed supply by 56%, due to persistent regional droughts, shifting of the population to urban coastal cities, and water needed for industrial growth. The supply of fresh water is on the decrease. Water demand for food, industry and people is on the rise.

Lack of fresh water reduces economic development and lowers living standards. Clearly, there is a critical worldwide need to better manage this increasingly valuable resource.

Desalination systems from GE Water & Process Technologies can make abundant fresh water both from seawater and from challenging brackish sources.

Seawater Desalination
Oceans make up 97% of the world’s supply of water. Desalination using seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) membrane technology has become a viable option for the development of new regional water supplies.

GE Water & Process Technologies is the world leader in the supply of reliable seawater SWRO membrane desalination systems. GE's desalination projects range in size from small 2,000 cubic meter/day (370 gpm) plants -- providing potable water to hotels and resort complexes -- all the way up to projects like the 200,000 cubic meter/day (53 MGD) Hamma Desalination Plant, the largest of its kind in Africa. Hamma supplies desperately-needed drinking water to over 20% of the population of Algeria’s capital city.

With over 20 years of seawater SWRO desalination operating and maintenance expertise, GE leads the industry in its practical knowledge of SWRO membrane design, SWRO membrane pretreatment design, SWRO membrane cleaning techniques, energy recovery devices and the selection of material of construction.

Brackish Water Desalination
Brackish water, containing minerals and salts typically less than 5,000 ppm total dissolved solids (TDS), can be economically treated with today's reverse osmosis (RO) and electrodialysis reversal (EDR) systems. Effective mineral and salt removal converts previously unusable waters to high-purity resources for drinking, irrigation or industrial process uses.

GE pioneered brackish water desalination in the early 1950s and continues to lead the way with cost-effective, environmentally friendly treatment systems for groundwater and surface water sources. Our global installed capacity includes approximately 250 mgd (950,000 m3/day) of EDR systems and 600 mgd (2.3 million m3/day) of RO systems.

EDR and RO systems are available in fixed land-based and mobile designs. GE designs and builds the systems and in many cases also operates them under full-service build-own operate contracts.

If you are going to fight a cause I believe in being educated!

Rob ;D

Rob_Mac

Re: Drought warning
« Reply #35 on: March 18, 2012, 01:37:02 pm »
And more
Wind power reduces environmental impacts of desalination plants
Water security is becoming an increasingly urgent problem as populations grow and the demand for freshwater increases. One solution is the desalination (desalting) of seawater or brackish water to produce freshwater. However, the process of desalination consumes large amounts of energy. If the energy comes from fossil fuels, environmental pollution will increase. Using renewable sources of energy, such as wind power, is seen as a viable energy alternative.
Worldwide, the use of renewable energy in desalination systems is not widespread and less than 1% of the capacities of desalination plants are powered by renewable energy. However, the development of small and medium-scale desalination plants using wind power is increasing. Since the early 1980s, wind-powered desalination plants or prototypes have been in operation, principally in Europe (Spain, France, Germany and the UK), Hawaii and Australia.
The study identifies two desalination processes as particularly suitable to being powered by renewable sources: mechanical vapour compression (MVC) (a thermal desalination unit), during which the feed water is heated; and reverse osmosis (RO) (a non-phase change process), where a membrane is used to separate salts from the feed water.
Wind energy can be used directly or indirectly to power these (and other) desalination technologies. RO plants are frequently found on the coast where it is often windy, and as RO is one of the most efficient desalination processes, it is one of the most suitable for integration with wind energy. MVC installations are more robust than RO plants and are better placed in remote locations with abundant wind power.
The study discusses technical problems associated with the intermittent nature of wind power, and issues with achieving the greatest energy efficiency from wind energy still need to be resolved. Two key strategies for addressing this are:
 Integrate wind and other types of renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic energy, to even out the power variations and interruptions associated with wind power.
 Construct a flexible desalination system that can operate with a variable energy input. Backup storage or additional energy supplies would then be unnecessary.
The study recommends that future wind-powered desalination plants should be thermal desalination types, which produce high quality water with fewer polluting discharges. Two newer designs of thermal distillation plants (a humidification-dehumidification process and vacuum distillation) operate at lower temperatures compared with current MVC processes. Lower operating temperatures do not require as much wind energy to be turned into heat, as is currently the case, which would reduce the costs of desalination and increase the energy efficiency use from the wind power.
Wind energy has been demonstrated to be a suitable alternative to conventional energy for operating desalination plants, particularly on the coast.

Rob ;D

BDCS

  • Posts: 4777
Re: Drought warning
« Reply #36 on: March 18, 2012, 02:35:41 pm »
The point is that the Government of the time handed out the water companies to private concerns with the aim of making as much money as they can, in Veolia's case being French so our money which should be reinvested in infrastructure just goes abroad. This area alone we have a French power cable coming in to Sellinge from France and the old Richborough power station is to house a power cable from Belgium - they would not put these cables under the channel if the potential profits are not huge.
The government has in the past and present sold its soul to the devil and is now reaping the rewards - at our cost.

Rob_Mac

Re: Drought warning
« Reply #37 on: March 18, 2012, 04:05:14 pm »
Carl

I agree with you but there is a answer sitting at Beckton to a lot of the problem. It may well be that it is expensive to run but it would seem that the South East is in need of water.

I would be asking at what point the desalination plant is going to be switched on and it would be interesting to get the stats on how helpful it has been and how much it has been used since it completion.

If you combine all of the long copy & pastes together in my eyes it would cost very little to run the plant, there are wind farms that I am sure could handle this, that are already in place.

Rob ;D

Roger Oakley

Re: Drought warning
« Reply #38 on: March 18, 2012, 05:24:07 pm »
At the end of the day each individual has to take whatever measures, that seem fit to make sure there business is safe. Yes there is a drought order coming and I am personally trying to find out what I can and cannot do re work with the laws (and staying within the law) as it stands at the moment, and when I find out anything more will post on here. If the ruling goes against me, I for one won't be stopping or closing down my business even if it means breaking the law/order,as I have clients/business's that will want works done no matter what. I can see all sides of the replies to this thread.



BDCS

  • Posts: 4777
Re: Drought warning
« Reply #39 on: March 19, 2012, 02:53:54 pm »
Veolia have again told us that pressure washing is most definately banned unless being done for H&S reasons SO I will put together a very carefully worded disclaimer in which that is the only reason the work is being done for this reason alone and will get it signed before the start. I have also briefed the call centre staff  ;D