Built in 1910 ish
Has partial cellar under half the building
Building was once part of a farm
Cellar suspected to have been kitchen/washroom originally
Ive lived here two years with the cellar being dry until two weeks ago
House backs onto a field (Council land)
The problem:
23rd december my cellar is 6in deep in rainwater
Its now 32in deep in water!
I have rented a pump but the water is coming from the field so I am effectively draining the land!
Ok so when this building was a farm, apparently there would have been a drain in the cellar with a channel underneath, taking water out towards the field. There is a manhole in my patio just before the field which is a 7ft deep brick "well" which is a trap for this drain. There is then a 4in clay type pipe leading off into the field which I SUSPECT is just an open ended pipe which drains into the land or originally a soakaway.
Ground water from my patio usually enters this trap and then flows out to the field direction (i.e.. the normal flow is towards the field). What is now happening is that water is flowing BACK down this pipe from the field to my property, entering the manhole trap and then backing up down the channel under my cellar where it then comes up through the floor.
The councils engineer seems to think think this is purely down to the water table rising with the ammount of rain we've had.
Here is a diagram of the layout:
Finding a solution and getting it sorted is now down to me as the council and my insurance have washed their hands of it. I have permission to dig in the field from the council if required. They or united utilities have no data on this pipe/drain at all and have agreed that it looks to only "serve" (even though it doesn't) my property.
My my aim now is to block this pipe off but in the correct fashion:
Option 1: Dig down and block the pipe in my garden. Using concrete or the likes? My reason for disliking this method is that if it ever let go or failed then I'm back to where i am now.
Option 2: Go 4/5 metres into the field and then dig down to the pipe. Cut the pipe and remove a section enabling me to shove a much concrete as I can into the piece of pipe leading to my property whilst also getting into the manhole in my garden and blocking that end too, effectively leaving a piece of pipe sealed at both ends in the ground.
Option 3: Something else?
Please bear in mind this pipe will be 6/7ft down so its going to require some excavation either way.
Surely thats not a very permanent solution? I had planned in the future to build an extension which would cover this manhole so it needs to be a permanent reliable solution
I wouldn't just go filling pipes without first getting them surveyed. If, as you say the water is coming off the field into your cellar then you really need somewhere for the groundwater and surface water to go. Is your manhole a soakaway, or a catchpit, is there a channel or a just a base in the bottom? If it is just one pipe coming from the basement ajd you want to build over it i would be considering moving the manhole outside of the build. Maybe that there is a soakaway built in the field that has silted up over the years and a new one should be dug. Try that bung ad a temporary measure and monitor the depths of water. I wouldn't grout the run in or cut it off until all investigations have been carried out. Also manholes are highly dangerous and it will probably be deep so putting a bung in could be difficult, apart from the obvious drowning risk there is a risk of gases being present and i would advise a gas monitor be used.
I would trace the drain into the field until you find the problem, unless it is high water table.
You can trace the drain by attaching a ferret finding or similar to a set of drainage rods send that down your pipe until you find a blockage then dig to investigate.
The problems with camera-ing the pipe going into the field is:
1) I can't pump the water out as its just draining the field so obviously the manhole is too deep with water to get down and use the camera
2) immediately after the manhole going to the field there is a clay S bend trap which dynorod man (who was very helpful) said he couldn't get the camera pipe past (this was when the water level was about 6in)
So tracing the drain is not as easy as it sounds. Thus me wanting to get more extreme with things. The council and UU have declared it doesn't serve any purpose to the them (nor does it to me) so that's why i was going to dig down, maybe remove a section of pipe and then get a camera survey in both directions?
You say i need somewhere for the water to go, but i really don't. Its looking like this is going to be high water table/ground water in which case its just finding an empty clay pipe which is low down in the ground and due to path of least resistance is flowing down it. Unfortunately at the end of that pipe is my cellar
As far as i can see if i block that pipe up then it will just stay as ground water in the ground?
If you look on the pic of the cellar full of water ^ You can see the top 6in of what looks like some form of tanking (possibly very old?) which is around 2ft high from the floor. This is around an inch thick and looks more like mortar/concrete to me? Was that how it was done in times gone by?
Weirdly, I changed the location of the pump today from the manhole to the cellar itself, and its dropped the water level by 2ft in around 3 hours, when yesterday in the manhole it was on for 7 hours and hardly touched it?! Its great that its dropped but now I'm even more confused!
Ive already plugged the pipe (at least to some extent) with an inflatable bung.
After the water level in the cellar dropped yesterday, 2 leaks could be seen in two of the cellar walls. One it the outside wall facing towards the manhole and one is on the internal wall coming from under the other side of the house Whilst there was also water coming up through the floor as I suspected coming from the manhole direction :rock:
Is that the done thing? Doesn't that just mean the brickwork will end up totally saturated with water and it then can't go anywhere due to the tanking material? Ie the brick can't "breathe"?
Seems like I'm not really solving the problem there just masking it? Im not questioning your knowledge btw Im genuinely asking as Im lost now with this problem
Thats the depth it was yesterday pretty serious shit
These are the two "springs" that could be seen once the water level was dropped:
1)
2)
The first one is on the manhole side outside wall and the second is in the middle of the house basically :O
This video shows the water coming up through the floor, the wall in front is the outside wall facing the manhole direction and you can see the patch of concrete where SOMETHING has been done under there when the property was renovated around 4 years ago Thats in line with the manhole outside:
