Having wrestled with my overflowing gutters this week, I'm still none the wiser as to what the downpipes drain into. Having cleaned half a ton of silt out of the downpipes, need to clean the (buried) clay pipe gullies they drain into. Been trying to work out where they actually go to. Might be soakaways somewhere (we're on chalk: dig two feet down and you hit chalk, chuck a bucket of water down and in a minute it's gone), or would they have run runoff water out into the street? Southern Water appear to charge me for disposing of it. All this stuff was done in the 70s. Most likely place they run the water to? I need to find the other end! Ta muchly.
If it’s a 70s house it’s highly likely to be a combined sewage. So you’d most likely have a foul water drain and a rainwater system that just drains into it somewhere. Later houses have separate foul and run off drains. Sometimes the rain water run off just gets channeled into the street and disappears down a road drain.
Your water company can provide you with a diagram of the drainage in your street / at your property. Mine cost about a tenner I think...
Where's your nearest inspection chamber to the drainpipe gulley? Had any extensions/ground work done? Be careful with old clay pipes, they might have already cracked or collapsed as the ground has moved and dried out over the years. Blocked downpipes can be because of blockages/collapses further downstream.
I’ve had the covers off all three of them, and they’re all foul water/jobbies. The runoff gullies run parallel, but where they end up is a mystery...
Buy some drain dye from toolstation. You’ll soon find where it comes out then. Not sure it’s exactly legal. But the best fun hardly ever is.
I got the plan for ours for interest because the neighbours drains were often backing up. It ran across everyone's back gardens, theirs was 6ft lower than ours and in consequence the drain was 11ft deep under ours. I'm glad we never had to dig that up! Not us, the blockage was the other side.
Bunged up long ago. I’ve ignored them. One gutter’s like Niagra Falls. The downpipes/gullies have slowly filled with silt, so nowhere to drain to.
Believe it or not, my neighbours flat roof discharges via a downpipe into my soil pipes and out to the road. He had a new roof and a large attic conversion done about 5 years ago so it should have been diverted into a soak away as part of the Building Regs in place then ( they dont like you discharging rainwater into the surface water/sewers anymore) I told him at the time but he's not bothered but now its backed up and overflows like yours. Thankfully its washing his foundations away, not mine..
Might drop Southern Water a line tomorrow. Can’t believe they let everybody’s runoff discharge into the sewer, or it would be Jobbie-Mageddon after a downpour
Can you not buy some lollipops and play Pooh sticks, it could be a literary and literal reference if done at the incorrect time of the evening?
You are not paying your water authorities there charges for surface water discharge if it is a soakaway are you ...because i don't think you should be . You do if it goes into there system . All my surface water and land drains from two fields next to us all go down the same soakaway even when it's urinating down the water doesn't back up to my amazement ,a mystery where it all goes ...it goes into a field which is downhill which probably helps and it is sandy soil . maybe the chalk soil you have helps as it is also absorbent .
I’ll investigate further. The house is 30s, but the guttering was re-done in the 70s. Would they run a separate pipe down to the road drain, mebbe?
It is. The rainfall overtops the weirs at the treatment plant and it all goes straight out the other side.
If the down pipe goes into the ground, usually goes into the sewer and the water companies charge you to take it away.. they do this by default. If it discharges onto the floor and runs over the surface to a street gully you dont have to pay and can ask for a rebate. Proving it goes to a soakaway is harder / more effort but if you can then you can get the rebate too. If you can get to where the down pipe goes into the ground tracing it with the covereds off maholes is easy enough , screwfix dyes are allowed but if its dry plain water will give you a good indication, throw a bit of food colour if you like. Sent from my SM-T580 using Tapatalk
