How gas workers prepare Kyiv region for winter: replacing pipes, cleaning after russists, and repairs in an hour instead of two weeks

What is the problem?

The russians were removed from the Kyiv region back in April, but they left behind many shattered buildings and communications. Winter is coming, and inversely proportional to the average temperature outside, the anxiety of Ukrainians is growing. It is related to whether the specialised services managed to restore the communications destroyed by the russians, as well as to solve old problems. Among them is the disconnection of subscribers from the gas supply for the period of repair work or permanent breakdowns in networks that have already served their term.

To find out, Rubryka visited several locations and checked how one of the operators of the gas distribution system of Ukraine, Kyivoblgaz, was preparing for the heating season.

What is the solution?

Polyethylene instead of steel!

The first location in the Kyiv region was Khotiv. Currently, works are underway here to replace communications with more modern ones. Two-meter trenches are dug along the settlement's main road, covering almost half of the road. Next to the pipes, from which the rust is literally coming off, new ones stand in contrast: wider, bright yellow.

The old steel pipes are already unusable: they served more than 30 years, but the new ones, made of polyethylene, should last twice as long: 50-60 years.

The work is ongoing – the polyethylene parts of the pipes must be connected to each other using a special butt welding device. It takes at least 40 minutes to connect two 12-meter pipes, and if it starts to rain, you can't weld at all. It is necessary to either stop work or install a special tent, but the fact that water will get into the trench in case of bad weather, as it turned out, is not scary at all:

"We do everything according to technology; the guys are professionals," Oleksii Rozhkov, the chief engineer of the Kyiv-Sviatoshyn branch of Kyivoblgaz, points his hand at the workers. "You know, last year, a journalist came to one of the facilities and wanted to expose us: she climbed into the trench, looked at every stitch, talked to every locksmith. But she didn't succeed because we do everything according to the technologies, strictly according to the instructions, and have been doing it for many years."

In total, 3,760 meters of gas lines are planned to be replaced in Khotiv before the start of the heating season. In addition to new communications, the street's redesign also involves installing new meters. It is free for subscribers.

The gas workers at the facility work without haste and assure: the heat will be on time, and by mid-to-late October, the gas will already be flowing through the new pipes.

Reduction of repair time: from two weeks to one hour

Our next destination is the cabinet gas control points (CGCP) in the Kryukiv region. You may not know what CGCP is, but you've definitely seen yellow lockers next to gas utilities. Such a yellow locker is an important element in the gas distribution system, which reduces the gas pressure in the pipes and distributes it to homes so that it is safe for people.

Rubryka saw how the CGCP replacement takes place, and it is interesting that such a procedure previously required the disconnection of subscribers from gas for a long period:

"We had to go around every house, explain what work needed to be done, and get people to allow us to turn off the gas. After the repair, it was necessary to go around all the houses again and turn on the gas. Imagine how long it takes if there are 200 subscribers on the line: someone is always not at home. Therefore such outages could last up to two weeks," says Andrii Ksenofontov, senior foreman of the fracturing/SRP group of JSC Kyivoblgaz.

Now, any work duration, whether pipe repair or CGCP replacement, can be reduced to an hour, all thanks to the fact that Kyivoblgaz purchased a special Revetti system. This device allows you to "ring" the gas supply communication during repairs, and to explain it even more simply, Revetti allows gas to bypass the section of the pipe that the gas workers need to work with.

If you look at it, several metal parts with a not very complicated construction, carefully folded into a metal blue box measuring about a meter by half a meter. The cabinet seems quite ordinary, but in reality, everything is more complicated. It turns out that Revetti is not one locker but dozens. All of them are designed for pipes of different diameters, so for each individual repair, a Revetti of the appropriate size is chosen. The purchase of the Revetti system cost Kyivoblgaz three million hryvnias.

So now, instead of depriving subscribers of gas for two weeks, Kyivoblgaz can now quickly go to the location and quickly carry out repair work.

Cleaning after russists

Rubryka also visited Irpin. The russians have been fighting with technology, communications, and common sense ever since the start of a full-scale war.

On the corner of the street, between two houses with broken windows and blackened walls from the fire, there is a bullet-mutilated CGCP, with which the russists probably fought in the spring. It broke down, but Kyivoblgaz has already replaced the damaged equipment with a new one. There are about 20 of them in total in Irpin.