Why is hot water turned off every year in Russia in the summer.
In Moscow, every year from May to the end of August, they turn off hot water for preventive work. The water shutdown schedule is drawn up and published before the start of the scheduled shutdown season. In 2019, this chart will appear in April.
2. Why is hot water turned off every year in Moscow?
Turning off hot water is a technical necessity to prepare communications for heating season to ensure during the cold season reliable performance all elements complex system district heating- thermal stations, main and distribution heating networks, central and individual heating points. Carrying out preventive work, as a rule, requires turning off hot water from consumers for a short period of time.
3. How long is hot water off?
Today in Moscow, the duration of blackouts is no more than 10 days. At the same time, in 2011, water was turned off for 14 days, and even earlier - for 21 days. 10 days is a reasonable term for turning off hot water without losing the quality and reliability of the Moscow heat and power system.
In new microdistricts, where new generation networks have been laid, modern heat points, the shutdown period can be reduced to the minimum required for maintenance work to ensure high-quality equipment preparation. Replacing old motors, pumps and heat exchangers requires more time and attention. For this reason, the shutdown period may vary in different areas, quarters, and even neighboring houses.
The term for turning off hot water for the period of preventive maintenance is indicated from the time and date of the start of the shutdown to the time and date of the end of the shutdown of hot water supply, but cannot exceed 10 days, that is, it must be less than 240 hours.
4. In which houses in Moscow hot water is not turned off at all or is turned off for a short time?
In houses with alternative piping, hot water may not be turned off every year, or for a short period of time, because it is possible to check and repair the main system while hot water is supplied through the backup pipes. However, even the most modern equipment requires preventive maintenance, so it is not possible to completely refuse to turn off hot water in a metropolis with a centralized heating system.
5. Why isn't the cold water turned off?
The summer season in Russia is traditionally associated with the cessation of hot water supply for a period of one week to a couple of months. The exact duration of the preventive period varies by region and the characteristics of the residential building. Why turn off hot water - such a question is asked by apartment owners who are forced to endure temporary inconvenience and carry water in basins. It turns out there are good reasons for that.
What is hot water supply (DHW)?
According to the provisions of the current legislation, hot water supply is the provision of apartment owners hot water established quality coming through communications to the residential premises.
In new and "age" DHW houses must comply with the rules approved by law. Today they are dictated by the Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Russian Federation No. 354, adopted in 2011.
Water supply must meet the following criteria:
- the water temperature can deviate from the norm at night by a maximum of five degrees, in the daytime - by three;
- water enters the apartments uninterruptedly throughout the year;
- it is 100% compliant with current sanitary and hygienic requirements;
- the pressure in the pipes does not exceed the set maximum.
The decision sets out the reasons and maximum terms turning off hot water. If a break in the hot water supply is associated with accidents and emergency circumstances, the duration of the break cannot exceed one day.
A special case is preventive work. Their duration is regulated by SanPiN 2.1.4.2496-09. The document states that if public utilities have turned off hot water, they must reapply it after 14 days. They have the right to turn it on earlier if possible, but cannot delay it for more than 2 weeks.
Preventive work and shutdown of water supply
Why is hot water turned off? During the summer, DHW is shut down for a set period to check for damage to pipes and heating mains. During the preventive period, liquid is supplied to them under increased pressure - this is how losses are detected and scheduled repairs are carried out. This measure eliminates the possibility of major accidents during the heating season, when the maximum load falls on the infrastructure.
The authorities adhere to the following logic: it is better if the apartment owners suffer inconvenience for 1-2 weeks than in winter frosts will be left without hot water and heat.
It is not customary to turn off cold water in Russian cities. It is not directly related to heating system, the load on the pipes is less than in the case of hot water supply. Interruptions are associated with major accidents which take up to one day to resolve.
It's been 2 weeks and still no water?
Decree 354 states that residents of the building must be notified in advance of the upcoming break in the hot water supply. They are informed about this in writing at least 10 days before the “event”.
If the water is turned off for a period of more than two weeks, without explaining the reason,. Dissatisfied tenants can complain to:
- local administration;
- housing inspection;
- district prosecutor's office.
It is necessary to submit a written application containing the full name of the originator, his contact details, the address of the “problem” house, a statement of claims and specific requirements. Practice shows that collective complaints drawn up by a group of tenants and containing the signatures of each of them have the greatest effect.
Who will be held responsible for the violation? If the building is serviced management company, DHW is organized by her. She is obliged to ensure the supply of services on time. If the Criminal Code refers to the fact that the shutdowns are due to non-paying tenants, you should not believe it. To take extreme measures to influence debtors, she must notify tenants in writing at least a month in advance. The amount of debt is stipulated by law, when it is permissible.
If the house is managed by the HOA, it is liable for debts as a single payer. However, the prevailing judicial practice demonstrates that it is unacceptable to stop the hot water supply for conscientious residents due to non-fulfillment of duties by their neighbors.
The biggest lucky ones among the residents of Moscow in May and June can be considered the owners of water heaters. Traditionally, preventive work forces residents of the capital to patiently boil water in kettles, go to a bathhouse or a fitness club just to wash themselves. And although planned outages last no more than ten days, this short period is always accompanied by an obvious domestic inconvenience. MIR 24 explains why hot water is turned off in Moscow and when it will stop.
Why turn off hot water?
Turning off hot water is necessary to prepare the city for the heating season. Preventive and major repairs during shutdowns are carried out at district heating stations and central heating points.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to check and repair communication systems without a complete cessation of hot water supply.
In utility systems, as in any other, for high-quality functioning from time to time it is necessary to carry out diagnostics and repairs.
These works also involve diagnostics of the main and distributing networks with a total length of over 15,000 kilometers, and the transfer of pipelines to more economical and modern analogues.
Ten days! Why so long?
MIPC believes that this period of time is quite reasonable and allows you to replace worn-out pipes, which inevitably deteriorate in winter from the cold, and also check all taps, valves and measuring instruments. Previously, preventive work required much more time. In 2011, for example, water was turned off for at least two weeks, and eight to ten years ago - for 21 days. The development of technology has reduced the shutdown time to ten days. Moreover, this year the city authorities have pleased the residents of the city that they will continue to reduce the term for turning off hot water.
If robotics are taught to check the condition of pipes, then prevention will take only two to three days.
Repair and maintenance work this year will affect more than 70,000 buildings, including approximately 33,000 residential buildings. Preparations for the next heating period will be completed by August 25.
In general, the Moscow heat supply development program is designed until 2020. In 2021, there will be no mass summer hot water shutdowns in the Russian capital, as the authorities assure. Hot water will be turned off for a maximum of three days, and even then not in all areas.
New builders are luckier?
Not really. The shutdowns will not affect houses that will be built under the housing renovation program. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin spoke about this in August last year. “But new houses will someday become old, and the need to turn off hot water, at least for a short time, will appear,” the head of the capital added.
However, this does not mean at all that only residents of new buildings will be able to avoid blackouts.
The need for prevention does not depend on the age of the houses, but on the pipes that run underground.
So, if you live in a house built in the century before last, and you know that it was recently held overhaul underground utilities, most likely, the utilities will not need to turn off your hot water.
You can find out the shutdown dates for specific addresses in a special section on the website of the capital's mayor's office or on the MIPC information portal. Keep in mind that no later than ten days before the outage, power engineers can make changes to the schedule, including rescheduling the outage from the current month to the next. Therefore, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the schedule again closer to the expected X-day.
Okay. Is it even possible to save money on this?
It is possible, although the utilities are unlikely to tell you about it. If meters are installed in your apartment, turn off the hot water riser for the entire shutdown period . Otherwise, cold water that flows from the "red" tap will be billed as hot.
Is it just us?
Of course not. In some EU countries, in houses with central hot water supply, hot water is turned off every year, but for a short time. So, in Riga, the shutdown can last from several hours to two or four days, in Tallinn - one or two days. In Prague, hot water can be turned off for two weeks, and in Helsinki, hot water is only stopped in case of an accident on the heating mains.
Among the CIS countries, Moldova has the longest scheduled shutdown of hot water. There it is turned off for a month - from July to August.
However, the inhabitants of the country are not particularly worried about this, because due to high cost centralized hot water supply, it is easier for them to abandon it in favor of individual devices water heating and heating.
In Ukraine, planned shutdowns occur from April to August annually, last an average of two weeks and concern not only residential buildings, but also kindergartens, schools, medical institutions. The situation is similar in Belarus. Although in some districts of Minsk the shutdown period was reduced, and it is 10-12 days.
However, in most countries of the world there is no practice of preventive shutdown of hot water, since they do not have centralized hot water supply systems. cold water they simply heat it up with personal boilers in apartments or with the help of general house heating.
"Hot water will be turned off due to hydraulic testing." After reading such an announcement, Muscovites begin to grumble, take out basins and heatedly discuss how many liters of water to boil for a family. But what kind of tests, not everyone knows. The correspondent of the site "RIA Real Estate" learned from the specialists of PJSC "MIPC" why "hydraulics" are needed.
Prepare a bowl in the summer
In the summer season, from Muscovites, no, no, and you will hear common phrase: "But in Europe the water is not turned off!". Indeed, heat supply in the west does not require a large-scale annual "reset". In most countries, dwellings are heated from local sources, for example, using electric or gas boilers installed in basements.
The Moscow heat supply system is centralized. This means that heat is produced at thirteen large thermal power plants (and several other smaller thermal power plants), and comes to us through heating networks. Their length is 16 thousand kilometers - almost half of the equator! Eight of them fall on the main and distribution networks. The system is maintained by MOEK PJSC, which supplies heat to 95% of the city's population and has the status of the largest specialized organization on the planet.
Workers of PJSC MOEK at the hydraulic test site
The scope of urban heating networks determines the need for their thorough preparation for the heating season. Rummaging through memory, every Muscovite will remember a school physics lesson: when heated, metal expands, and when cooled, it contracts. So the pipes through which hot water flows are constantly deformed by temperature changes, hence the risk of high wear. If not carried out hydraulic tests and timely diagnostics, the pipeline will break sooner or later. Needless to say, breaks in heating in winter period highly undesirable.
To prevent this from happening, MIPC specialists annually check heating network- after graduation heating period but before the start of the next one.
Cool and press
Translated from engineering into Russian, "hydraulic testing" is a test of thermal networks for strength and density.
"To do this, we increase the pressure in separate sections pipelines. We call them “stages”, this year there are about 560 of them in Moscow,” says Roman Korovin, Deputy Chief Engineer for Main Thermal Networks of MOEK PJSC. According to him, each stage has its own boundaries and a certain amount of consumers. At the time of work, they are disconnected from the network, but not more than for ten days.
Work at each stage consists of several parts. The first is cooling. The water temperature is reduced to forty degrees, the process takes from 12 to 15 hours. The second stage is a smooth increase in pressure in the pipes up to 20 atmospheres. At this point, it is held for two hours. During this time, specialists measure the parameters at control points - the pressure on them should not fall below the working norm, that is, 16 atmospheres.
MOEK team connects a mobile pump to heating networks
"If these parameters do not deviate from the norm, then the tests are considered successful," says Korovin. For each pipe, he adds, the MIPC crews take about five hours. To build up pressure, specialists use mobile pumps that are transported in trucks and connected to the heating network using flexible metal hoses - the so-called bypasses. The last stage is the inspection of heating networks and the repair of defective areas identified during hydraulic tests or preliminary diagnostics. According to Korovin, typical problem for the Moscow heating network - external corrosion.
"The insulation that was previously applied to heating networks did not protect pipes well from corrosion. But modern technologies allow you to extend their service life. For main heating networks, this is 25 years," Korovin notes.
Finding a defective area thermal pipeline, experts disconnect it from the network, cut it out, insert a new one and brew it. After the upgrade, the pipe undergoes hydraulic tests again, so that the MIPC crews make sure that everything works like clockwork. If the test is successful, consumers are connected to the network.
"Six to seven people work at each stage, the whole process fits in ten days," Korovin emphasizes.
Hydraulic tests on heating networks
Firm secrets
To ensure the uninterrupted operation of heating networks and quality service, MOEK specialists use modern special equipment: pumping units, mobile pumps, devices for diagnostics. For complex diagnostics of heating networks, several methods are used, for example, ultrasonic and acoustic, they measure the electric potential, the stress concentration of metals.
The company also has its own "chips" that help secure the network.
"During the relocation and construction of new networks, all pipelines are laid with thermal insulation made of polyurethane foam with a control system," says Korovin. These, he explains, are two wires inside the insulation, which, when wet, show a change in resistance on the sensors. MIPC specialists receive a signal about a specific trouble spot and repair the problem before serious damage occurs.
Many individuals are actively interested and cannot understand why hot water is turned off. As a rule, during the summer season, residents suffer from the fact that for a certain period of time there is no hot water in their taps. In some cases, discomfort of this nature lasts for several weeks, and sometimes even more. In this article, we propose to understand why this happens, and also whether it is possible to achieve the availability of hot water during all three months of the summer.
Almost every individual in his life faced with the fact that for several weeks in a row he did not have access to hot water. As a rule, this adverse event occurs in June, July or August. Before starting to figure out why this happens, and also why there is a pattern of this kind, we suggest talking about heat supply and about the rules according to which hot water is provided in a city Russian Federation.
It should be noted that in modern world have long gone from the fact that each person should independently take care of heating his home. To date, such a procedure as district heating is actively used.
What is heat supply
Under such a term as district heating, it is customary to understand the process of providing heat not to one consumer, but at the same time to a large number of people. The heat, which as a result is used by consumers, is generated by the boiler house, as well as combined heat and power plants. However, the question automatically arises as to the means by which people receive heat generated by the above generation sources. This connection is carried out using two main heat pipes, one of which is called hot, and the other is reverse.
Thus, at a certain thermal power plant, thermal energy, which as a result is used to generate hot water. After that, heat is supplied to special systems, created for water supply and heat supply of residential buildings, water is produced there, and from there it is transferred directly to consumers. It should be noted that in the process of so-called water preparation, various conditions. First of all, it is temperature and pressure. In addition, the composition of the future product is also taken into account, since a large number of harmful impurities can significantly harm human health.
Reasons for shutdown
Just like that, no one can leave the residents without water, and for a rather long period of time, therefore, there must be their own reasons for the implementation of actions of this kind. During the summer months, the lack of water supply is due to a number of the following reasons:
- Start of repair. Since all equipment wears out over time, its replacement or repair cannot be avoided. First of all, repairs are required at thermal power plants, without the normal functioning of which it will not be possible to obtain energy, which is an integral component for work. centralized systems water supply. In addition, the serviceability of backbone networks is also very important, so their repairs are also carried out in the summer.
- Reconstruction work. In some situations, repairs cannot save the situation, and a radical reorganization is required. Usually, the reconstruction of heating networks, which are used for heat distribution, is carried out. In other words, networks are being reconstructed, with the help of which the coolant, previously generated by heat sources, is daily supplied to installations that are heat consumers. Also, reconstruction in the summer season is usually carried out at central heating points.
- Prevention. It may also be necessary to carry out a number of procedures, the purpose of which is to prevent breakdowns. Prevention is carried out through a large number of water tests, which are carried out with heating networks that have recently undergone reconstruction. In some cases, preventive work is also necessary on heating networks that have not undergone reconstruction in order to decide whether it is necessary to perform a procedure of this nature or not. In addition, regular preventive maintenance should also take place in sections of heating networks, which are the means of connecting heat points and main networks.
- Replacement / installation of equipment. In order to avoid various accidents, as well as adverse consequences caused by problems associated with central heating points, they are checked every summer. If the relevant specialist sees that certain equipment will soon fail, then it is replaced. In addition, during the inspection, it may turn out that some equipment is not enough at all. In this regard, it is being purchased and installed, as a result of which water is turned off in residential buildings for a while.
Is it possible to have hot water all summer
Majority individuals extremely dissatisfied with the fact that a certain period of time during summer season they don't have hot water. For this reason, consumers water resources are actively interested in what they need to do to get hot water flowing from their taps all year round. Unfortunately, in 2019 it is impossible to avoid the planned cancellation of water supply to houses. However, this problem is still solvable, but it takes time, as well as a considerable amount of money.
Attention! According to the current legislation, the duration of the implementation of both preventive and repair work connected with heat and water supply systems cannot exceed three weeks. In this regard, if residents do not have water for a period that is more than twenty-one days, then this is already considered a violation of the law.
How to avoid a planned outage
Judging from the above information, it becomes clear that the tenants are obliged to endure the lack of water for three months of the summer for their own good. If repair and maintenance work is not carried out, then the risk of serious accidents after a few months, which entails the absence of water for a much longer period of time, increases significantly. However, in the future, it is still possible to continuously supply water to houses located on the territory of the Russian Federation by carrying out the following procedures:
- Use of modern pipelines. Science does not stand still, and in 2019 some industries are already actively using polymer materials. If you replace existing pipelines with new ones made of polymers, life will be much easier. Since this material has a high corrosion resistance, it will be possible to operate pipelines from it for more than fifty years. In addition, heat losses will be significantly reduced.
- Automation of heat supply systems. In the case of automation of district heating systems, it will be quite easy to control heat, distribute it, and also anticipate adverse effects. Automation will minimize the occurrence of various accidents, as well as the occurrence of breakdowns.