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Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 11:12 am
by greentown
I have a drain outside my bathroom and kitchen windows and pipes from bath, basin and kitchen sink, wash machine all empty into these drains.
I assumed the poo/toilet flush went into a sewer pipe somewhere else! (don't know technical term for toilet waste/water)
But I lifted manhole cover in back garden and found that all kitchen, bath waters and toilet water come down same pipe from house together.
It looks like I'm end of a run of pipe as there is a bend and pipe crosses my garden towards neighbour.
Is this normal/ok?
It's a 1930s house.
Does it mean anything in terms of draining rainwater from roof into this pipe? Would I be allowed do this?
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 11:45 am
by seanandruby
Depending on where you live and when your drainage was installed could detemine if you have a combination drain, your local authority will know. All your waste water ie sink, bath and shite go into the same sewer. Your roof, surface water should go onto a seperate run, one goes to a water treatment plant and t'other goes to a soup farm ( raw sewerage ). Storm water should not go into the waste because you could overload the system and end up with raw sewerage backing up and overflowing. The roof ( if no seperate drain ) need togo to a soakaway. Yes it's normal for drains to go across, will be a manhole or inspection chamber at change of line, or gradient. Hope this helps.
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 12:30 pm
by lutonlagerlout
sean is spot on here (again)
bath toilet washing machine etc is all called foul water
your roof water may initially have been connected to this but that isnt right these days
cheers LLL
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 2:35 pm
by greentown
Thanks very much - that explains it all. The house was initially built with soakaways for the roof water but they've now become non-functioning so I'm going to dig new ones. I think some of my neigbours over the years have run their roof water into the sewer because they've complained of the toilet water gurgling during storms.
I haven't experienced this - perhaps because I'm at the end of the sewer line/ my pipes might be a bit higher - ooh er!
Not sure of the technicalities of how the sewers run and how many houses would be connected to a run.
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 5:17 pm
by seanandruby
You can check your manhole to see if you drain directly into it, or is yours the head of a run.
A pipeline can take any number of dwellings. Foul pipe willl be 100 dia raising to 150 if more than 10 dwellings. You can make a soakaway using storm crates it will give you more capacity than rubble, shingle etc:
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 7:50 pm
by greentown
I've lifted the manhole cover and rund all the taps in kitchen and bathroom and flushed the toilet and every time the water comes through.
No pipes come through from any rain downpipes.
I think we might be the end of a run (but this is just me guessing) as under the manhole cover, there's only one right-angled pipe coming from the side of my house (kitchen and bathroom) which flows downwards and then directky over to my next door neightbour (semi-detached).
I'm assuming, if we were mid-run, that the pipe would be more like a T-junction?
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 8:05 pm
by seanandruby
Oblique y junction not a T on foul runs. T junction on surface water only. Sounds like yours is "head of run", last one on the run that is what we call it. I found out this week from the guy who laid the main drainage on my site, that all the laterals for the foul sewer are going into t junctions. No wonder there are so many blockages.
Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 10:01 am
by greentown
Thanks for that.
Does being 'head of run' mean that the pipe starts at our place (our bathroom is the furthest point on our property from the manhole) and then runs through several properties, collecting all waste, before entering a larger sewer pipe?
The larger sewer pipe would, I guess, collect from many 'runs' on a street?
It's a fascinating subject - working out the impact on gravity in moving waste and the necessarly falls in pipe work.
How many houses would normally be in a run?
Is there a point where the water company uses pressured water rather than gravity to flush the waste along to the sewage works?
Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 3:19 pm
by seanandruby
Each house should have it's own IC at least a meter on your boundary, that goes into the lateral drain on to the main run, or into a manhole. 3 y chamber max' to a run. It all ends up in a treatment plant. There are pumping stations en route. Once treated the water is pumped into streams and eventually back into your home potable. The solids are sold off as fertiliser or fuel.