Construction Standards
Austin Water offers resources to help engineers and contractors design and build water, reclaimed water and wastewater infrastructure in the City of Austin.
- Utilities Criteria Manual — The Utilities Criteria Manual provides guidelines and criteria for the design, construction and coordination of water and wastewater facilities within the City of Austin and outside the city to the boundaries of the utility service areas. Information in this manual is intended to provide orderly methods for obtaining utility services.
- Current Standard Specifications — Our Current Standard Specifications outline the procedures for constructing water and wastewater facilities for contractors.
- Current Standard Details — Our Current Standard Details provides engineers the details for their construction plans.
- Standard Products Lists — Austin Water's Standard Products Lists specify acceptable manufacturer products for use in the construction of water, reclaimed water and wastewater infrastructure. These products have undergone testing to ensure safety, reliability and consistency within the Austin Water system.
- Pipeline Engineering — The Pipeline Engineering page provides resources for compliant design of public water, wastewater and reclaimed water infrastructure. The site includes Pipeline Engineering's scope of responsibility, local and state development requirements, checklists and forms, information on capital improvement and general permit projects, and links to the technical manuals required for compliant design.
Disinfecting Potable Water Mains
This section describes methods of disinfecting newly constructed potable water mains; mains that have been removed from service for planned repairs or maintenance that exposes them to contamination; mains that have undergone emergency repairs because of physical failure; and mains that, under normal operation, continue to show the presence of coliform organisms.
The plan must comply with AWWA C651 (Disinfecting Water Mains) and AWWA C655 (Field Dechlorination), latest editions, and must be developed using one of the following templates unless otherwise approved by the Design Engineer or Austin Water:
The Slug Method and Spray Method per AWWA C651 are also acceptable if better suited for a given project. The contractor shall select the disinfection method appropriate for the project. The HDPE Municipal Advisory Board (MAB-03 2019) recommends that new HDPE water mains be disinfected in accordance with AWWA C651 using only liquid disinfectant solutions, not powders or tablets.