UK Utilities Support Burst Rising Mains Detection Initiative

Leiden, The Netherlands – Condition-monitoring specialist Samotics has developed a new capability to detect burst rising mains, one of the wastewater network’s most challenging and least visible failures. Developed in collaboration with Yorkshire Water and Southern Water, and using verified data from real bursts across both networks, the platform gives water companies earlier warnings on assets that are difficult to monitor. 

Rising mains, pressurized pipes that carry water uphill, are among the hardest assets in the network to oversee. As a result, a burst is often confirmed only once wastewater reaches the surface. and is reported to the water company. The Environment Agency attributed around a fifth of England’s serious pollution incidents in 2024 to spills from rising mains.¹

Every hour of delayed detection compounds the failure and makes it more costly to repair. The time taken to detect a burst is the biggest single factor in determining how damaging the incident becomes. 

Samotics’ new capability takes a different route - it works from the electrical signature of the pump itself and is the only rising main burst detection system to do so. The SAM4 platform uses electrical signature analysis (ESA) to monitor pumps and motors remotely from the motor control centre with artificial intelligence (AI) analysing the current and voltage they draw.  

Reading the electrical signal means SAM4 can monitor pump systems effectively and continuously which often operate in an envelope of high demand, picking up the early signs of a developing burst that would otherwise stay hidden until sewage surfaces. When an incident occurs, SAM4 raises an alert, so control rooms can investigate and mobilise resource quickly to assess the situation and determine the best course of action. 

Built on the same ESA technology that underpins SAM4’s existing detection models, burst rising main detection is the latest addition to a capability set that already spans a wide range of mechanical and electrical failure modes across pumps and motors, as well as performance and energy efficiency. 

Tom Swain, head of UK & Ireland at Samotics, said, “Water companies already use SAM4 across thousands of pumping stations to catch faults such as blockages and airlocks. This is a problem we have been looking at for a long time, developing a mature and high-quality solution, which we are now proud to bring to the market. 

“Working closely with our scaled clients to develop this model has been pivotal, and we now have a solution that enables us to flag a likely burst with high confidence. It’s a great example of how a genuine commitment to condition monitoring and a collaborative approach between organisations has led to progress on an industry-wide challenge.” 

The development of the new SAM4 capability was supported by the central control team at Yorkshire Water and Southern Water and was built and validated using verified real-world bursts recorded across both networks since 2024. 

Chris Perkins, head of pollution performance at Southern Water, said: "Knowing that an incident has occurred determines how serious it becomes, and rising mains have always been one of the hardest places to get that early warning.  

“That's why we've backed this work with Samotics. It turns a signal we already have from the pumps into an earlier alert on assets we've struggled to see into. 

"It has already alerted on a confirmed burst, giving us confidence that a genuine event was underway. A clear signal, read straight from the pumps, is exactly the kind of thing that helps our teams act quickly and decisively on assets that are notoriously hard to monitor. And the more certainty we have that an event is underway, the faster we can act to limit the pollution it can cause.”

George Cowell, manager of operational intelligence at Yorkshire Water, said, “We’ve worked closely with Samotics over the past year, following success observed across their blockage and airlock modules. We presented the team with a challenge to help us solve the problem around more accurate rising main burst detection, using an alternative to conventional measures such as pressure and flow monitoring, whilst enabling faster widescale coverage due to our scaled approach with Samotics’ SAM4 monitoring, which is already in place.  

“Using our operational data, along with case study examples, and the knowledge of our field teams, we have been able to refine a system which generates low alert volumes with good accuracy. It’s early days, but it’s genuinely collaborative, and we’re keen to see how it performs across the sewage pumping stations where we run SAM4.” 

Launched in July 2026, the new model is available on the SAM4 platform. 

1. Environment Agency, environmental performance report for water and sewerage companies, 2024 (published July 2025).

About Samotics: 

Founded in 2015 in the Netherlands, Samotics is the global leader in smart monitoring technology for hard-to-reach industrial assets. We help bring unprecedented visibility to every critical asset by analysing electrical signals, the heartbeat of industrial equipment, using existing hardware or simple sensors, in combination with our own AI-driven platform. This allows us to identify, with an industry-leading 95.5% accuracy, when an asset needs maintenance or is performing sub-optimally, as well as the type of repair required, so that maintenance teams can act in a proactive and targeted way. By enabling companies to continuously monitor asset health, performance, and efficiency, we help them significantly reduce unplanned downtime, pollution events, and energy waste. 

Visit www.samotics.com to learn more.