A £2.6 million upgrade to sections of the 45 km-long Talla aqueduct used by Scottish Water to supply most of Edinburgh’s water has been completed by contractor George Leslie Ltd, with Jacobs being the Consulting Engineers.
Built in Victorian Times, the aqueduct takes raw water from the Talla and Fruid reservoirs in the Scottish Borders to Edinburgh’s modern Glencorse water treatment works.
For most of its length the aqueduct runs as a tunnel, split by several bridges and siphons. It is capable of taking up to 127 megalitres of water per day. Following visual inspection of the tunnel and its associated chambers Scottish Water identified the need to carry out work to refurbish parts of the tunnel and chambers, including installing new valves in the chambers.
In 12 different structures and locations Winn & Coales Steelcoat 100/400 was used to give protection to some 350 linear metres of pipe and various joints and couplings. This follows its successful use last year by George Leslie in a similar refurbishment of Scottish Water’s Loch Katrine aqueducts which serve Glasgow.
In each case the Winn & Coales Steelcoat system comprised of: Denso Hi-Tack Primer, Denso Profiling Mastic, Denso Hi-Tack Tape, Denso Ultraseal Tape and Denso Acrylic Topcoat.
