Your Ultimate Guide to WRAS Water Regulations

WRAS, or the Water Regulations Advisory Scheme, are a body dedicated to the protection of the public through making sure water supplies stay uncontaminated, whilst promoting smart and efficient uses of water that adhere to the guidelines of the Water Supply (Water Fittings) regulations.

 

WRAS have four key objectives that they hold themselves to:

  1. To increase knowledge and awareness of the public with regards to the Water Fitting Regulations using various mediums; such as marketing, consolation, education, communications and industry development.

  2. To properly enable individuals and organisations to comply with the Water Fittings Regulations by giving an approval scheme, processes and guidance throughout.

  3. To enable water companies to have cost effective support by helping them with consistent guidance for how to comply with the Water Fittings Regulations.

  4. To bring together the UK water industry as a single governing body that adheres to the Water Fittings Regulations, and help to aid this industry by providing relevant codes, standards and guidelines.

 

Every water fitting that is installed must comply with the guideline that WRAS set out. This requires the fitting not to cause any waste, misuse or unnecessary consumption/­contamination of water supplies, ensuring quality is kept to its best standard.

 

There are two types of WRAS approval that can be achieved: products and materials. For products, it concerns whole products (that includes values, pumps, boosters, showers, etc.) which involves water quality and mechanical testing. For materials, namely the sum of the parts for products, is testing to make sure that it does not contaminate the water in any way. You can check out which products and materials have been WRAS Approved here.

 

Products sold at Complete Pump Supplies have a history with these regulations. Our Cat 5 Booster Sets for instance have become increasingly useful since it was made illegal to fit a hose pipe onto taps in commercial buildings back in 1999. The reason for this illegality was to prevent back-flow within the hose, meaning there would be no contamination (bacteria) within the pipes that drops into the main supply.

 

The Cat 5 Booster Sets come with a Cat 5 Break Tank that features an AB type air gap to separate the inlet and the outlet to ensure that the contaminated water does not fall back into the water supply. Help to improve what your water can do for you and invest in a Cat 5 Break Tank, perfect for commercial or domestic use.