“What about the drains in Finchley?”

[PlasmaParticipant @plasma]

Title inspired by the good old Goon show.

But yesterday afternoon I was checking in my subfloor to find a pipe run after the new heating system had been installed a month ago.

There was water running down the concrete oversize and I thought we had a heating leak.

The smell told me otherwise and I lifted the inspection cover in my back garden to find the chamber full of foul water.

Rodding the outlet pipe was no use so I found the next inspection chamber two doors down, that was 4 feet deep and two foot was full of effluent.  Three more doors down the same story.

My junior drain servicing kit and knowledge was exhausted so I called our local water firm. Despite it being like getting through to MI5 I did manage to raise a case and get someone to come out.

8 am this morning and tanker and jetting unit arrived and I showed them all I had found so far. They were very impressed as most folk just notice a smell, ring them and forget it. I had traced the drain for about a hundred metres. They tried jetting from where I last found a blocked chamber and nothing shifted.

So we moved down the street, then further down. Eventually 400m later we hit a blockage that suddenly cleared and the whole system started to empty.

Apparently no one in the whole run had noticed anything unusual,  no over flowing manholes or smells etc. The liquid was leaching away through any crack in the system leaving the sludge behind to set solid. If I hadn’t checked my subfloor it would have carried on till the whole system was solid.

Five hours of jetting and checking with cameras showed the system had been blocked with wet wipes! Even the flushable ones are not flushable and should never be put down the toilet.

I worked alongside the two water guys to help out where I could and learn a bit about the drain system around my home. Very interesting and something we take for granted until it stops working.

 

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

Plasma you have done much better than a friend of ours lives just down  the street she and several of her neighbours have regular backup’s in their pipework since ST dung p the main road to add drainage for the new houses that were been built. This as gone on now for around 5 years ST come out rod the outflow then leave no one is willing to come out and find why it’s happening

H

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Years ago, my neighbour had a similar problem one Boxing Day morning.  Eager to help, I arrived with a second set of rods.  Trying to clear the blockage from the upstream end did not work as the rods and corkscrew just passed through the “sludge” and didn’t clear it.

However, gradually attacking the blockage from the downstream end was the solution.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

As speedy has said, working from the cesspit end works. An elderly friend of mine had a blockage, the most likely cause was that he didn’t flush the toilet often enough, allowing the solids to be left behind, not helped by modern toilet paper and other products. When it did clear Lord did it go with a rush ! Noel.

[PlasmaParticipant @plasma]

Noel it was the same here, when they blasted through with a nozzle they called a Bulldog the water was off like a log flume.

I was so thankful that they came out and did virtually the whole street. Thing is, we still don’t know where the actual blockage was. But hey ho. All is running again

 

[larry phelan 1Participant @larryphelan1]

That,s what happens when the S—– hits the fan !

Not funny, I know, I saw it a few times.

I suspect most drains are way overloaded these days.

[Clive SteerParticipant @clivesteer55943]

Maybe nobody noticed because the whole system was acting like a septic tank with a degree of self decomposition taking place.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

The sale of wet wipes should be banned.

[PlasmaParticipant @plasma]

Wet wipes are a modern thing, we all managed with torn up newspapers or Izal medicated. Soft wet wipes are just something the marketers tell you that you simply can’t do without.

Even the supposedly flushable ones don’t break down.

And as has also been said, the drains are overloaded. Our estate was built in 1962, the drains were connected to the estate built in 1939. Since our estate was built there have been a further three large estates built cheek by jowl. And our council are looking to build another two in this same area. With no appreciable increase in capacity for drains or mains water.

[PlasmaParticipant @plasma]

Yorkshire water turned up again today to investigate why I ended up with foul water in my subfloor.

The guy is coming back in the morning to do a full survey of the piping.

He said my inspection chamber needs refurbishing,  I asked what that would cost he said grab some mortar and point up the defects I showed you,simples.

[John MCParticipant @johnmc39344]

I live in a 1930’s house were all the water wastes share the same sewer pipe.  We also have access to an inspection chamber where you can, if minded to, watch the waste on its travels further downstream.  A two foot diameter cover giving access to a chamber some four foot in diameter and 10 feet deep.

There are infrequent but regular blockages upstream, usually first noticed when “water” starts to flood out of the first cover on the run.

The cause of the blockage is, usually, man made.  Easy to blame on wet wipes but more likely to be the packaging they come in.  Toothpaste tubes are another favourite along with nappies.   Roots seem to be a worrying recent addition to the blockages.

To put an engineering interest in to this, a few years ago the pigs tail device used to drag the blockage through the pipe picked up a 0-1 micrometer!

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>When you find what some people put down the loo you’re forced to question the meaning of homo sapiens. My dad was a jobbing builder,  he once had to dig out a hopelessly blocked drain only to find a scrubbing brush wedged in a joint. Quite how it got round the U bend is a mystery.</p>

[PlasmaParticipant @plasma]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Seems there are a number of issues with the whole length of the sewer as the water guy cae back this morning to do some more camera work.</p>
A short section of clay pipe on my property also needs sleeving which I have no real knowledge of, apart from the cost if they need to dig out the rainwater gulley pot that feeds into that section.

So looks like I will be getting the spade out and doing a bit of investigation work myself.

Yorkshire Water will be doing a mix of sleeving sections with separated joints and fitting alarms in the deeper inspection chamber that will alert their control room if Water levels rise too much before any escape can occur.

Watching the camera screen we saw several large pieces of roof slate laying inside the pipe, which is odd because all the rooves around here are tile not slate, so hiw did it get there?.  They are going to bring a suction wagon to remove all the heavy debris when they flush the system.

 

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

If the sewer crossing your land takes more than just your waste then it is the water board’s responsibility. Not sure about branches used only by you.

[PlasmaParticipant @plasma]

Yeah if the sewer just goes from your property to a public sewer then it’s your responsibility. I’m the last, or first on this line so up to my property boundary is down to me to fix.

Looks like the pipe from a rainwater down spout is displaced or cracked, so if it rains I get water in the sub floor. Because the sewer backed up all the way into that section of pipe it allowed foul water to soak into the subfloor.

Sleeving that short section should cure the problem. Or stopping it up before the damage so the live sewer can’t back up to it. It’s a redundant downspout anyway.

[PlasmaParticipant @plasma]

So, I took the easy route of digging down to find the redundant sewer line just above the Y junction where the kitchen drain joins it.  A quick slit with the angle grinder and I checked the full length upstream with the home made drain camera I cobbled together.

I didn’t mention that did I? Cheap endoscope with 3m of cable and USB connection to laptop. I made a little carrier head for the camera with a light source.  A 15mm shank allowed it to fit in a 15mm push fit plumbing joiner and a 2m length of flexible pipe.

This worked brilliantly to see along the pipe and identify there were no faults after the cut out and plenty of movement on the upstream side.

After this inspection I placed an expanding plug in the downstream pipe and cemented the upstream section.

Now the section that was leaky is tapped off and secure from any future overflows of sewage.

The prices for repair were eye-watering.

New rain gulley trap; £1500

Excavation up to 1mm square by 100mm deep £1500

Sleeving of damaged sewer pipe £650 per linear metre.

To do it myself cost me a bit of sweat digging the clay heavy soil out round the pipe, 5 quid for the pipe bung, half a bucket of mortar and a bit of time in the shop throwing a canera head together.

I’m definitely in a good position financially.

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