• Two years after the pipe burst, thermal water comes out of the market fountain again.
• A completely new pipeline was built to another thermal spring and the construction work was combined with the laying of a district heating line.
• The work is a successful collaboration between the city of Aachen, Vialife Schwertbad GmbH as the owner of the spring, and Regionetz.

It's bubbling warm again: after a dry spell of around two years, the market fountain in Aachen-Burtscheid is back in operation. In January 2023, a burst pipe in the thermal water pipe meant that the warm water stopped flowing. The City of Aachen's facility management team - which operates the fountains in public spaces - immediately set about locating and repairing the damage. Unfortunately without success, as the point of damage on the pipe could not be found. At this point, the only thing that was certain was that the fountain was being fed from the Landesbad spring. Despite an intensive, joint search by building management and the city's climate and environment department for the approximately 70-year-old pipeline, it could not actually be located.

Successful cooperation
Due to its age and condition, a new pipeline was needed. Building management and the Climate and Environment department joined forces in an unbureaucratic and pragmatic manner and launched a joint project: "We wanted to ensure that the popular fountain, which is also extremely important for the Burtscheid spa area, was up and running again as quickly as possible," says Klaus Meiners, Head of the Climate and Environment department. The owner of the Landesbadquelle, Vialife Schwertbad GmbH, was brought on board and asked to supply the fountain via the Schwertbadquelle in future. Reinhard Strauch, head of the Vialife clinic, explains: "This will save us a good stretch of the thermal water pipeline. The Schwertbad spring is much closer to the market fountain than the Landesbad spring. This has a positive effect on construction and maintenance costs. In addition, the Schwertbad spring will also be put to public use."

Robert Schmidt, Head of the Technical Facility Management Maintenance department at the city, had another thought: "The new Regionetz district heating line was due to be built in this area anyway. We then suggested to Regionetz that the construction work could be combined at short notice in order to exploit valuable synergy effects." No sooner said than done: the civil engineering work for the new thermal water pipeline and the new district heating pipeline were combined. Christian Stein from Regionetz: "The joint route enabled us to achieve considerable synergy effects - shorter construction time, lower costs and a single construction measure for residents and businesses, including outdoor catering. In the pedestrian zone, which is also a thermal conservation area, the road only had to be closed once, dug up and then the surfaces restored. The people affected certainly thanked us for that in the end." The building management team took over the project management of the external engineering firm for the water pipe until completion. And once the pipeline had been handed over, the building management workshop implemented the connections on both sides of the Schwertbad spring and the market fountain itself.

Water march!
"Once the construction work is complete, we can finally say: water march! And even hotter than before," says Ekkehard Steinmetz from the Climate and Environment department: "Thanks to the new, insulated and shorter pipe, the water now reaches the fountain at its original temperature of over 60 degrees Celsius." And it's not just the temperature that is original: The pure, unaltered thermal water that comes out of the fountain is by its nature not drinking water and is therefore not labeled as such on the fountain.
The total cost of constructing the 75-metre-long stainless steel pipeline is around 95,000 euros.

The fountain
The thermal water fountain at Burtscheider Markt, on the corner of Hauptstraße, was opened to the public on August 8, 1953. However, the first thermal water did not flow out of the fountain's three barrels until July 2, 1958. It was designed by architect Dipl.-Ing. Hanns Compermaß. On the sides of a four-metre-high stele are ceramic figurine reliefs made of fired clay, created by the sculptor Rita Landvogt from Aachen-Sief.

The depictions refer to the history of Burtscheid. The spa is symbolized by a Benedictine monk helping a gout sufferer. Also depicted: The abbess of the Cistercian nuns with Burtscheid's coat of arms and a man and woman with a shearing knife and spindle as a reference to the textile industry.