Yorkshire Water is installing 35,000 alarms across properties in the region as part of its efforts to reduce sewer flooding.

Once installed, the devices will monitor the water level within the combined sewer gullies using a pressure sensor which sends an alert remotely when an increase in level is identified.

A wireless network is used to enable the teams at Yorkshire Water to identify trends in how the sewers are performing and analyse and proactively respond to increases in sewer levels which are often signs that precede sewage escaping the network onto streets or into people’s homes.

Increased levels in gullies can indicate potential blockages or damage within the sewer network that are restricting flow.

The latest programme follows a successful pilot project of 5,000 devices that were installed in Bradford, Doncaster, Leeds and Sheffield.

Henry Dixon, Business Transformation Manager at Yorkshire Water said: “This project represents a significant investment and forms a key part of our ambition to increase the technology in operation across our network. The devices will provide vital insight into the performance of the network, allowing our teams to monitor flows and understand network performance remotely.

“Our successful pilot project helped to prevent sewer flooding in homes and gardens, improved our customers’ experience by alerting us to blockages before they caused a problem and saved time and cost on our Customer Field Services visits by attending proactively to resolve problems before they caused flooding.

“The expansion of the project will ensure we can quickly identify potential problems and mobilise our teams to investigate the network before there is an impact on our customers and/or the environment across Yorkshire.”