Soak away advice required

[seanandruby]

Get a drill and stitch drill around the metal pipe to loosen up the 'compo' in the collar, carefully, try not to break it incase it is ok. there should be some black tar like yarn around it under the compo, just pull that out and the piece of metal pipe will lift out. you'll be able to reach in with your hand a bit further. wear long gauntlet type gloves and was your hands thoroughly after.

[TheMany]

A further update.

Following advice I drilled out the "compo" and got the metal pipe out of the collar. Some of the "compo" is still stuck in the collar, but I guess that is a problem for next weekend.

Using my full reach I managed to reach into the 90 degree bend and scoop out soil and gravel. The pipe was completely blocked and packed solid with soil and gravel. After clearing out the soil, I could feel the edges of the 90 degree bend. The ceramic pipe seems to terminate in a house brick which is at 45 degrees to the pipe work. So it seems that the 90 degree bend is the only bit of pipe work, and there is a "soak away" at the end of it (i.e. a load of hard core). This means that the soakaway is about 2 foot from the wall of the house!!

I filled the 90 degree pipe from the hose, and after about 1 minute of filling the pipe was still empty. So it seems that water is soaking away again. But where is it going

So now I have a 90 degree bend pipe, with a collar partially filled with "compo". Would do I do now to put it all back together?

Thanks in advance.

[lutonlagerlout]

its almost certainly a clay non roddable gully
you have cleared the blockage and its working again
I could be wrong of course
LLL

[seanandruby]

Well done jerry. If you clear an edge of the compo with your drill ( carefully ) you can tap away with a pointed chisel, or similar to clear the rest. Raise it back up to ground level with a piece of offcut pipe and a hopper with a grid on, don't fill the collar just yet fix your downpipe back. i would leave the hole open temporarily, cover with a rip of ply, just to see how it performs when it rains. It almost certainly is not a non rodable gully but a 90 degree bend :;):

[TheMany]

Ok sean will do. That will be my task for next weekend. I will report back progress.

Many thanks all for your help so far, I would have been stuck will out this forums help.

[seanandruby]

Sorry Paul, i called you Jerry by mistake. Glad we can help.

[lutonlagerlout]

how did the brick get down there?
good job anyway
they do 11mm rubber couplings that go over downpipes you could use one of them to seat the downpipe in the hole in the clay
Universal Rainwater Adaptor is what they are called
LLL

[seanandruby]

can't see it being a soakaway. It may be there was an inspection chamber that go knocked and covered when building drive, or pipe was fractured with brick hardcore used for the drive. maybe you could put your camera down the bend and try take some shot's. Is there a manhole in the rd? Worse case scenario if our idea doesn't ''hold water,'' is cctv and a dig down to repair.

[TheMany]

Hi again.

No idea how the brick got down there.

Using my fingers to feel around I can feel the edge of the 90deg bend. It feels completely smooth and flat. It does not feel sharp or irregular in shape, as it would if the pipe was broke, hence my “assumption� that that is where the “soakaway� started.

If you imagine the 90 deg pipe lying upright in the ground (as it is shown in the pictures), the part of the “rim� I can feel is at the bottom of the pipe. So if a brick had accidently crashed through from the top, it is surprising that there is a gap at the bottom of the pipe (and it is so clean a cut).

I do have a decade old 1 Meg Pixel Camera, so I can try that down the hole in the first instance to try to grab some shots. Actually I do have an IR CCTV camera, so maybe that would work if I could mount it on a stick!

With regards to man hole covers, I have no idea if there are any in the road, but the road does have drains at the kerbside for water drainage.

Thanks.

[TheMany]

Two views of the "brick" at the end of the right angle pipe, and two close ups of the surface.

Thoughts, comments, next steps?

[TheMany]

Some further info. From talking to the neighbours, apparently none of the houses discharge into the drains. If this is true, perhaps I do have a "soakaway" 2 foot from the house

Also the Mrs (the bill payer) does not think we pay for surface water drainage, so this adds to the case..

[TheMany]

Bump

[flowjoe]

Hi TheMany

Only scanned throught the earlier posts but all you can do is expose the exisiting drainage up to the front boundary line, then you will know if its a soak-away or on main drainage.

If its a soakway its probably sealed due to debris (no trapped gully to stop silt entering the system) and you can dig a new one, if it passes beyond the boundary then speak to your water company.