New house - sewage problem

J

JJ

Guest
I've recently bought a new duplex house and last Friday I was shocked to discover a pile of raw sewage backing up from one of the drains in my back garden.

The drain the sewage was coming out of was supposed to be the drain for rain water from the gutter on the roof. The dyno-rod guy who came out to unblock it told me that the set up was faulty. He said sewage should not be going into this drain in the first place as this drain has a u-bend and it will always block up (not to mention the fact that it's covered only by a grill).

I then had the builder and his plumber out who conceded the drain was set up incorrectly. They propose to solve it by converting the drain into a proper sewage drain (i.e. taking out the u-bend, hooking it up to another sewage pipe, and covering over where the grill is with concrete). They will divert the gutter pipe to a different drain.

My concern is that the pipe feeding the drain with sewage from the toilets is also feeding the drain with waste water from the bathroom sink, bath, ensuite sink, and shower. The proposed solution by the builder will leave this set up intact and will result in the waste water running directly into the sewage pipes.

My question is; shouldn't waste water from sinks/baths be piped into drains that are separate from the sewage? Has anyone had a similar experience and if so, how did you deal with it? I imagine that putting this right may be a very big job.
 
Given the seriousness of the problem, I'd suggest that you engage a structural engineer or architect to review the builders proposal and the final work. You don't want to be facing this kind of problem in couple of years time when the builder is long gone.

Talk to your solicitor to see if you can stick the builder with the costs of the engineer under the original purchase contract. Is the property covered by ?
 
Re: Sewerage - A Dirty Topic

Rainyday, as far as I am aware, Homebond is covered for Structure and Water ingress only, I don't think that they would be much help in this case.

Since you have a drainage problem that is not (I would guess by your type of house) connected to a septic tank, and instead connected to mains foul drainage, I would contact your Local Authority directly and ask them to act on your behalf.

It's not worth your while paying the extra money for an Engineer.

HTH

Mo
 
sewage

"My question is; shouldn't waste water from sinks/baths be piped into drains that are separate from the sewage? "

I am not an engineer, but I am fairly sure that they shouldn't.

There are two drainage systems: the surface water (which takes the rainwater from your gutters) and the foul (which takes everything else).
 
thanks

Thanks both of you for the replies. Mo you are right, it's connected to the main sewer so I rang the council. I was told the Building Inspector looks after this kind of thing. I have yet to talk to him as he is out of the office today but hopefully I will catch him tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion Rainyday. I'll see how things go with the council and then decide if I should go the engineer/solicitor route.
 
thanks

Thanks too MOB. I'll see what the guy from the council says when I talk to him.
 
Re: thanks

My concern is that the pipe feeding the drain with sewage from the toilets is also feeding the drain with waste water from the bathroom sink, bath, ensuite sink, and shower. The proposed solution by the builder will leave this set up intact and will result in the waste water running directly into the sewage pipes.
My semi-d uses a single stack system, which I believe is quite common. All the waste pipes from upstairs flow into a single pipe at the side of the house. The pipes from the upstairs toilets enter the stack pipe above those from the sinks, etc, and the top of the stack pipe has a vent, presumably to draw up and disperse any nasty smells. This system is separate from the groundwater/gutter waste system.
 
JJ

There seems to be some confusion between (A) Sewer System (B) Foul water from sinks, whb bath etc. and (C)
Storm water i.e. rain water from the roof etc.

Is is OK to let both sewer and foul water into the mains or into a septic tank and there's no need for two seperate pipes for this - a stack pipe system a described in a previous reply is the ideal way to do it. By the way the vent pipe serves two purposes 1. To release fumes etc and 2. more importantly without a vent the flushing of say two toilets in the house at the same time would cause a vaccum in the pipe resulting in the water in the toilet traps and whb traps to be siphoned out into the system allowing dangerous gases to enter the building.

Under no circumstances should storm water be let into a septic tank or into a mains sewer pipe. As it's cosidered clean it can be piped into a nearby stream or mains storm water pipe which is as I said before a totally different system to the mains sewer pipe.
 
council

Thanks Rory and Pied Piper! I've learned so much about plumbing in the past week!! I spoke to the building inspector from the council today. I'll post the final outcome soon (hopefully!).
 
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