Soak away advice required

[TheMany]

Hi,

I live in a house from 1910.

I recently had my guttering replaced all round the house, because the old guttering was leaking in multiple places. After replacing the guttering it became clear that one corner of the house was very damp, presumably due to a blocked soakaway overflowing.

The soakaway in question seems to be a round metal pipe that goes into the ground just in front of the wall of the house (3 inches off the wall). The pipe seems to be full of gravel etc at the moment. The pipe is located in soil.

The front of the house has a garden (front garden is around 1.5 meters wide, and then terminates in the pavement of the street.

The question is, what maintenance action should I take? Should the soakaway “downpipe� be completely free of all detritus? Should I ideally dig the soakaway downpipe up and replace if with a new pipe?

I am assuming that the downpipe just extends down vertically and terminates in gravel (as opposed to being a horizontal system). This assumption is based on the width of the front garden.

Any thoughts / advice on how best to tackle this maintenance issue would be gratefully received.

I will try to add a picture in due course.

Paul

[seanandruby]

it shouldn't go into the ground and terminate. It should go into a rest bend, or a gully and pipe to a soakaway. It would seem your soakaway has silted up. You may need to dig a new one. It should be a minimum of 5 metres from the house. It may be that it goes to a manhole. You need to investigate, maybe get a drain cleaning firm and have it jetted and cctv surveyed. Draindomain.com, our very own flowjoe does repairs etc

[TheMany]

View of soakaway under neath and behind new guttering. The guttering angles away from the soakaway as a temporary measure.




Downward view on soakaway




View into soakaway. I have cleared the top 3 inches, but there is more muck in there.

[Pablo]

if the distance from house to road is 1.5m then it's very unlikely you have a soakaway and very likely the water either drained into the sewers or across the original surface and out the gate. That pipe looks like a broken bit of downpipe so you need to dig down beside it and see what's going on and get back to us. Also get whoever did the gutters back to put a proper boot on the end of that downpipe and not a connector the lazy git.

[TheMany]

Hi,

Yeah the distance between the front wall of the house and the main road is about 1.5m, 2m at the max. To the side of the house is a tarmac drive.

I presumed it is an original soak away from when the house was built and 5m was not the order of the day.

The sewers for the house seem to run around the back gardens, not the front, so it cannot feed into them unless it runs 15 - 20m around the back of the house.

I had a quick explore the other day, and dug 1ft down and the pipe was solid metal and kept going.

My explorations were stilted becuase the "right angle" of the new black down pipe is resting on the pipe. I am not sure of the best way to get the "right angle" off without hurting the down pipe (which is a single 5 m run from the roof). I guess I need to undo the wall brackets and then push the down pipe back towards the wall to try to make room to remove the "right angle". I just don't want to break it.

If I wanted to call in some help, who would I call a general builder?

Thanks

[seanandruby]

is there a manhole nearby that the metal pipe runs to. It may be that it is a combination drain. If there is a manhole maybe you could lift the cover and find the invert level of the pipe to give you some idea of the depth. Didn't realise the garden 1.5 was the length as well as the width.

[TheMany]

Hi,

Re garden I have confused you, with my bad description. At the front of the house, the garden is 10m wide (the width of the house), but the house is set back 1.5 to 2m from the pavement. In the above pictures the guttering "right angle" connector is pointing towards the pavement. Hopefully that makes sense.

I have had an explore, and there is a manhole around the side of the house, but this only seems to have the stop cock in it for the main water supplier.

The next man hole I can find is in the back garden, and this is for the waste water i.e. the main soil pipe feeds into this system.

I am not aware of any man holes for waste/drainage at the front of the property. I have the waste pipe plans (from the land registery)and they show only the one man hole in the rear garden.

Hopefully that makes sense. I will take a better picture tonight to put the whole layout into more context.

[Pablo]

What do your neighbours do and could you post a photo of the house from the road. I'm thinking the original pipe dispelled onto the concrete/ paving and ran out the gate. Over the years the road and front garden level have probably been raised several times. Those connectors just pop off with a tug although it may have a screw in it which you'll have to take out then take of the bottom wall bracket and bend the pipe out of the way.



Edited By Pablo on 1331061104

[TheMany]

Not looked yet at what the neighbours do. To one side it is more modern terraced houses, to the other a fairly modern bungalow. I will have a sneak peak tomorrow.

Here is a better picture of the pipe in the context of the garden..

[seanandruby]

It may be deep, that is not uncommon, it will eventually have a 90% bend to direct it to a junction, or inspection chamber. Can you try cleaning inside the pipe as far as you can. The shingle looks like it could be from your garden, below that should be silt ( if it is blocked ). It may be that the bend has dropped away, allowing for surrounding earth to get into the pipe run. I think you need to call a specialist pipe jetting firm who will cctv the pipework for you.

[TheMany]

Thanks for the advice.

Any idea how much jetting and inspection typically costs?

Also, any idea of a recommended firm in the Wilts/Hants area?

Thanks

[TheMany]

A further update.

I have now had a little dig to expose the pipe work. The metal pipe that sticks out of the ground seems to be cemented into a larger diameter ceramic pipe, which runs off at a circa 45 degree angle.

The metal pipe, is quite clearly cracked all along its length, allowing the rain water to escape. The metal pipe was so corroded that it broke easily!

I tried digging the centre of the pipe out, but I cannot get anything out of it. I filled it from the hose and the water does not drain away.

A good poke with a bamboo cane did not bear fruit either. All that happend was a bit of the cane broke and got lost in the hole!

Does this look like a typical soakaway set up?

[Pablo]

yep Thats your old downpipe and the crockery is probably a u bend or a standard 90 angle but i guarantee you don't have a soakaway in that area. You need to break the downpipe out completely and get your hands into the clay pipe and clean it out. A screwdriver is good for loosening it up bamboo isn't. If you can't clean it out you need to keep digging around it until you can remove the section and then try to clean it from there. Beware that pushing debris further down the pipe will make the problem worse it all has to come out.



Edited By Pablo on 1331418416

[Carberry]

Thanks for the advice.

Any idea how much jetting and inspection typically costs?

Also, any idea of a recommended firm in the Wilts/Hants area?

Thanks

The guy I uses charges me £60. He's hilarious, has to be though when you spend a lot of the day in other peopls sh*t :p

Whatever you do don't use Dynorod.

[TheMany]

yep Thats your old downpipe and the crockery is probably a u bend or a standard 90 angle but i guarantee you don't have a soakaway in that area. You need to break the downpipe out completely and get your hands into the clay pipe and clean it out. A screwdriver is good for loosening it up bamboo isn't. If you can't clean it out you need to keep digging around it until you can remove the section and then try to clean it from there. Beware that pushing debris further down the pipe will make the problem worse it all has to come out.

If I don't have a soakaway, what do you think I have? A feed into the main drains?