A toolkit developed by a Welsh Water employee outside his working time to remove sewer blockages has helped the company save over £100,000 in just six months – and could help save as much as £1 million per year.

Geraint Williams, who works as a Sewer Operative for Welsh Water, in south Wales, has invented and used tools to retrieve items that block the sewers - Welsh Water’s not-for-profit model means the savings made go back into the company to benefit customers.

Welsh Water own 30,000km of sewers across their operating area  - blocked sewers are a major problem and cost the company over £7 million pounds a year to clear.

The tools, which Geraint made in his own garden shed in Tonteg, help his colleagues to retrieve items from the sewer more quickly and efficiently, reducing the need to dig up customers’ properties and gardens or public roads to reach blockages.

Geraint, 44, who worked in Sales and as a Warehouse Manager before joining Welsh Water four years ago, explains:

“My job involves looking after the sewerage network and going out to blockages which customers have reported.”

“I was quite shocked to see that there were things in the pipes, maybe just three or four metres down which we couldn’t reach. We had to mark them up for another crew to come along behind us to dig them out of the ground because we couldn’t reach them with the tools we had. I wanted to find a way to resolve the problem quickly for customers.”

Before the invention toolkit, the team couldn’t always reach the items with the existing tools on the market, meaning they often had to dig down to reach the blockage. This could mean digging up a customer’s garden or even inside their home, or causing inconvenience to road users, by digging up roads and footways.

Geraint found himself thinking about the problems well after he had left the job:

“I used to go home and think about the trickiest problems while sitting in the bath. I would play them through in my mind and then go into the shed and make a tool that could reach the blockage.”

Geraint has now made seven tools, which through Welsh Water’s support, has resulted in the filing of seven patent applications.

Welsh Water is now working with Geraint to get the tools manufactured and distributed. By rolling them out to all of Welsh Water’s sewerage teams across Wales and Herefordshire, it is estimated that they could save the not-for-profit company up to £1 million per year. If the tools prove a success they could be rolled out across the water industry too.

Welsh Water’s Managing Director of Wastewater Steve Wilson commented:

“Sewer blockages on the wastewater network are the biggest cause of pollution incidents and can lead to flooding of properties and cause pollution to the local environment. They are often a huge inconvenience to customers so we do all we can to prevent blockages or get them resolved as soon as possible.”

“The tools Geraint has produced have made a significant difference to our customers, helping us to improve our services, protect the environment and resolve blockages more quickly.”