Oh god! big problems - A pipe too many

[mdfenemer]

For some time now my back garden has been flooding during rainfall and smelling at the same time. my house is twenty yrs old and has two extensions. i have decided to do something about it. the first Idea was to take the slope away from the house at least that would send the water the right way down the garden, instead of flooding around the patio. I start to dig around where the downpipe goes into an open pipe jutting out of the ground (full of water and smelling, no grill).As soon as I start to disturb the soil and remove the downpipe the smell starts again. I ignore this and keep digging away. Low and behold another drain with a grill on it,under about four inches of soil (never seen this one before). I have now removed all of the soil and concrete away from the two pipes. Boy what a mess. While digging around the pipes I hit a house brick I pull hard the brick comes out to reveal an open ended pipe which tee's of the grill covered drain that was buried. From this Tee joint the pipe runs under the garage. The other pipe that had the downpipe in it sits along side the covered drain but runs deeper in the ground and also runs under the garage. I have tried to bail out the stagnant water out, but I got out about 15ltrs but it still comes back up to the top of the pipe. I hope you are following so far. At the front of the house on the other side of the garge is another grilled drain set in concrete which sits in the lower end of the drive this also has stagnant water in it, I presume that this connects to one of the pipes that runs under the garage from the garden. There is no man hole or inspection covers on my property at all, which also makes me worried, your site describes the dual system usually having two covers, well I have none. Please, please advise me. I haven't got lots of money to throw at the problem but I have got a shovel and patients. mark.

[Tony McC]

Sounds like a break and/or blockage somewhere - have you considered rodding the drains?

[mdfenemer]

Hi tony thanks for replying,

Since my desperate posting I have indeed got hold of some rods and give the drains a good rodding. The dirty stagnant water has gone. However I won't get to excited until we have had some heavy rain (thunderstorms forecast for tonight). I have now exposed more pipework one of which was a metal capped inspection cover, again under 4 inches of soil. I have opened it up to find a four way chamber one of which is capped off, so if it does not backfill I can connect the pipe that has been left open under the garage for 13 years to this junction in the system. I am sure this will be just like a bigger version of a kitchen waste pipe system. Once again thanks for your reply. a much happier Mark