Hello,
I apologise in advance for my clueless-ness with some of my questions. I am a student nurse rather than being in the trade but would really really appreciate any advice .
Just wondered if anyone could offer some advice on this one. We have an end terraced 1930's property. Our next door neighbour noticed a foul smell coming from under the floor boards in their understairs cupboard back in feb. All the properties have a sub floor approx 3.5ft deep extending under the front room. They pulled up some boards and discovered what appeared to be foul water up to board level. United Utilities came out and advised said would do further investigations but it took several months before this happened. We were unaware of the problem till we noticed a smell and mentioned it to our neighbour, the previous owner of our house had fitted a trap door to access the subfloor and when we took a look we discovered foul smelling water approx 1.5ft deep. United Utilities returned and rodded and checked the sewers with cameras. They also attempted to pump the affected properties of those who were in ( at least 6 affected that we know of) . In our case they started to pump and stopped after five minutes as the water started to fill back up at speed. The foreman announced it must be groundwater and nothing to do with them and they departed.
We are still fairly convinced that it is foul water plus to me ( and forgive my ignorance on this) it didn't seem logical that ground water would re-fill at rapid speed . A few weeks after this a United Utilites crew turned up and dug up the road outside our house whilst we were out and we returned to see signs up saying "emergency sewer works " ....interesting and a bit co-incidental since its supposed to be groundwater !
Anyway..where we are at now is the smell has decreased but water is still present..there is a loose membrane laid over parts of the sub-floor put there by the previous owner so our plan was to get this out asap as it will obviously prevent anything draining and then try and pump it out ourselves if we have no further joy with the utilities company. We were thinking of getting a sample tested to see if we could find out whether it was mains, sewer or ground water but we aren't sure who would do this..any ideas ?
We are pretty concerned as we have signs of rising damp in the hallway above the sub-floor, peeling paint and some plaster cracking and as a student nurse money for repairs and maintenance is always an issue.
Any opinions or advice on this would be really appreciated
our very own flowjoe is up your way flow joes webby
he is the drain meister and will know exactly what to do
I am a mere southerner but have heard that united utilities are as bad as it gets for customer service
LLL
if you are able to test the water locally and find it is fouled... which would to all extents and purposes appear to be the case, contact the water ombudsman will full details. your utility company appears to have tried to fob you off. If you have problems getting water tested, fernox laboratories will do it for you, however they do charge for this service, but they are independent and their results could be used to support your claim, as any damage caused to your property as a result of the utilities damaged sewer main would be claimable.
general builder, maintenance engineer, gas and plumbing installations, extensions etc
Sorry to hear about your problems, we were calld out to a similar problem last year three properties owned by local authority with rising damp in the hall ways, on lifting the sub floor found 2ft of water under each property.
that was foul aswell.
three years previous a national company who do property repairs for various local councils changed the main from lead to plastic,shame they only fitted the new plastic and cut off and bent the old lead main over as they couldnt find any stop cocks so they had been leaking out for three years.
Hi Guys, Thanks for all your advice..we are currently awaiting sample results. Interestingly smell has decreased since the "co-incidental" sewer works opposite the property. Water level hasn't gone down much though. Next step pumping and once we have some answers then will decide how to proceed..if it is groundwater will have to deal with it but it is all a bit suspicious . Thanks again, will let you know how we get on
