Hi All
It used to be common practice for baths, sinks, washing machines etc to discharge into rainwater systems. This is now verboten as I understand it and they now have to discharge into the soil system.
Anyone know what year the regs changed?
What happens for instance in an old installation, where the bath, sinks and washing machine discharge into the rainwater system and you want to add a dishwasher? I assume that has to go into the soil stack but the existing stuff can be left as is?
Oddly, I have never seen it done that way round. It was common at one time to discharge rain water into the sewer system, whereas that is now at the very least discouraged.
I would imagine so.
I think you have it the wrong way about.
It used to be, and sometimes still is, legal to discharge rainwater into the 'foul sewer'
However this means it doesn';t go into the ground, where its needed, and makes for a pretty massive flow of sewage. So these days there is a tendency to dump rainwater into the ground via soakaways, and keep the foul sewers for domestic effluents.
If you have a cess pit or septic tank, and do any work to it the BCO will insist on it being reaplaced with something better, and will insist that you do not dump rainwater into it..thats been the case for many years.
On Tue, 09 May 2006 22:31:53 GMT someone who may be "The Medway Handyman" wrote this:-
To add to what the others have said.
In ye olden days it was common for baths, sinks and so on upstairs to discharge into a hopperhead (which may also take rainwater) or a rainwater pipe. Typically the former down south and the latter in Scotland. Equipment downstairs discharged into open gullies, which may also have taken rainwater. However, these were all connected to the sewage system.
In order to reduce the amount of rainwater going into the sewage system it has for a long time been the case that rainwater must be separated out. It is usually discharged into a suitable watercourse, now often via reed beds and the like.
How do you know that there is a separate rainwater system?
That would be the sensible thing to do, if there is a separate rainwater system (though the council may want to know why baths and sinks are being run into the rainwater system if they find out). If things are as I suspect and there is no separate rainwater system then the dishwasher can discharge into a gully.
The message from "The Medway Handyman" contains these words:
Not anywhere I've lived!
Not round here. Not only are septic tanks perfectly ok in existing installations, the vast majority of new houses get septic tanks, not Klargesters and similar.
This varies with location. In many urban areas there is no way soakaways can be installed far enough from any building and there is no separate rainwater drainage system, so rainwater is all discharged into the sewage system.
Much to my surprise, a friend who lives in a rural area (but on main drainage) recently asked if he could discharge rainwater into the sewer, and permission was granted without any problems at all.
Certainly is in Kent. My house, my sister in laws, my daughters (all built mid 50's) all have discharge into rainwater systems, Only the WC discharges into the sewage system.
The message from "The Medway Handyman" contains these words:
Odd, I've lived in three houses in Kent, two built in the 50s and one in the 30s and none of 'em did that.
Sounds unpleasant for them.
Some apostrophe's might have made that a less unappealing comment. :-)
Owain
When a mate plumbed his washing machine waste into a soakaway, he succeeded in undermining the foundations which needed underpinning.
Surely that's more to do with the position of the soakaway than what goes into it? Granted, he's providing a perhaps daily dose of water, but if that peared the house, it's in the wrong place.
I've seen houses with the soakways precariously close to the house...
Cheers
Tim
More than just a daily dose - he had three young kids. All the kitchen waste went into the soakaway.
How do you know that they discharge into a rainwater system?
Christian.
To be honest - I don't. But the gutter down pipes & outlets from appliances go into a gullly not the soil pipe. If you lift the inspection covers you can only see the discharge from the soil stack. I have no idea where the rainwater/washing machine/dishwasher ends up.
On 10 May 2006 18:40:24 GMT someone who may be snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) wrote this:-
Certainly in an existing urban area drainage arrangements will not be changed for small developments. Building a new urban area is a different matter.
A lucky man. Are they charging extra though?
When sorting out B Regs plans in a previous house, it turned out the village had 2 separate sewer systems one for rainwater & the other for foul. ISTR the rainwater system was the original foul system. I can't recall who I checked with - it was either the water board or LA building control: - but after the person checked village sewer plans I was given the option of soakaway or the rainwater sewer system. To use the foul system for rainwater the property would have had to be outside a certain distance from the rainwater sewer. The numbers 150 feet & 150 yards stick in mind but it was a long time ago.
This sounds exactly like my mum's place that has a combined sewer. All the rainwater pipes discharge into gullys, as do all the kitchen and bathroom drains etc. The soil pipe however runs straight down into the path with no gully. They do however all join the main underground pipe that runs down the side of the house, and this ultimately terminates at a deep manhole in the back garden. Hnece there is only one combined outlet from all the sources of waste water into the manhole. I expect they did the soil pipe like that to ensure there is no open vent below eves level that is connected to the sewer without a water trap.
Then it probably goes to the sewer. Almost all houses round my way run kitchen waste to a gully. It doesn't mean that it is a rainwater system. There's no reason why it would pass all the same inspection covers as the soil pipe.
There is no separate rain system round here. The same gully system is on my house (1909), my mum's house (1888) and my old house (1986).
Christian.
It does. There is another outfall to the manhole from the adjoining property, and a larger exit pipe to the main sewer. The inlet pipes are also about 8 foot downstream of a "weaver" (short vertical fall with vent) that acts as a non return valve for the bulk of the household pipework.
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