Dropshaft + soakaway questions

[gord58]

Hello folks... really excellent site, well done.

I have a timber cabin which is having an en suite at the rear. The cabin is on brick piers (on sloping ground) & is 500mm above ground level at the front. The foul drain runs underneath & comes out at the front, and I want to suspend it from the joists rather than bury it (digging underneath would be more like mining). Can I put a dropshaft where it exits at the front of the cabin, to a depth of 600mm below ground level... and can this dropshaft be simply a vertical pipe (with access plug) or does it have to be part of an IC? An access chamber will be 4 metres away downstream, so the section up to the dropshaft could be rodded from there... what if I put a rest bend below the dropshaft to ease the bend?

Also, I can't find anything in Part H about how close a soakaway can be to a neighbour's boundary... any restrictions?

Thanks in advance, GW

[Tony McC]

Dropshafts should be part of an IC structure, unless exempted by the BCO or sewer inspector. They're unlikely to be happy about any pipework being exposed - the pipes suspended beneath the floor of the cabin would probably be acceptable, as they are awkward to access, but I would expect the BCO to requyire an IC, dropshafted or not, to be positioned at the edge of the cabin, so any other pipework is properly covered and protected.

Soakaways at boundaries - no restrictions. The restrictions relate to proxinmity to buildings and other permanent structures. If the boundary was, say, a wall higher than 1200mm, then it would be classed as a 'structure' and the soakaway would have to be at least 5 metres (preferably 10m) away.