Water is taken from a river or lake and, once it is cleaned, it is stored in a reservoir like the one in this photograph

Water comes from the reservoir to our homes through large pipes that are laid in the ground

Pipes can be made of steel like these or plastic like the ones in the last slide

Some water pipes are laidin fields

Some water pipes are laid in roads

Some water pipes are connected by pushing them together

These pipes areconnected by a machine that melts the ends of the pipestogether

These pipes are joined together using bolts

Before starting to dig the engineer must make sure that nothing important is in the ground that the excavator could damage

It is the Engineer’sjob to make surethe workis donecorrectly

Can you spotThe engineer?

The engineer has drawings to show him/her where the water pipes are to go

For example can you see the yellow gas pipe in the photograph?What do you think might happen if the excavator bucket strikes it?

The soil is loaded onto a truck and taken away

The pipes are then laid in the ground and joined together

Why do you think these large steel boxes are used?The next two slides might give you a clue

This machine can drill a pipe under a bridge

Why do you think there are barriers around the excavation?

What do you think the small blue pipes are for?

Once the pipe is in the ground small stones are placed around it

The trench is then filled to the top with more stone

When the pipe trench has been filled to the top its time to tar

The road is then prepared for tarring

Trucks come with tar for the road

The road is then tarred

Finally the road is tidied up and is reopened to the public again

The pipes are then washed with chlorine and tested to make sure there are no leaks

Now the waterhas made the journey from the reservoir to your kitchen tap!