coalhole - service mains + damp proofing

[mat.]

hi,

i moved to a maisonette, ground and lower ground floors, and currently i am dealing with coal hole just under the pavement. this hole area suffers from penetrating damp. water finds its way through the pavement slabs to this cave. the council came to sort out some slabs, but water still gets in, and it is very probable that it will always do.

after doing some research i've decided for a cavity drain membrane, channeling the water to the mains, currently a manhole in the coal hole's floor. (platon multi from isola products seems about right.

)

an additional problem in this area is that all the services come to the house from the street to the coal hole.

i took a picture and numbered the incoming pipes.

#

1 ? seems old water pipe 2 gas 3 water. (lead pipe) 4 telephone.

pipe 1, is capped off. i think it might be water as it is cold to touch and it is lead. the mains water is a lead pipe that goes to a stop c*ck inside the coal hole as well, and from there on the pipes are not lead in the whole house.

i phoned the water company, as i thought they are responsible to replace this lead pipe that goes under the pavement, but they said that they only own the pipes directly under the road and not the ones that branch to each house.

is this correct? i thought that they own and are responsible for the pipe work until the stop c*ck.

i would also like them to remove that capped off pipe (1), as it seems to have water inside as well, and having to put the waterproof membrane on the walls, it makes it easier without the expired pipe being there just hanging from the wall.

anyone has any knowledge on who's responsible for replacing this pipes?

any help much appreciated.

regards, mat.

[Bob Mannix]

I'm afraid they are "correct". They will normally admit responsibility for the stop c*ck in the road/pavement (if there is one), after that it's down to you, I'm afraid. Not much help, I know, but there we go.

[Harry Bloomfield]

A lead gas pipe would be equally cold to the touch. It used to be common pratice for water pipes to be fed through the basement of several properties in a row. The capped off pipe might be the old feed on to the property next door.

True.

[ng_abuse-subscribe]

Harry Bloomfield retched coalhole - service mains + damp proofing onto my recliner:

I suggest you suck on it to check the temperature thoroughly.

[mat.]

by looking at the picture and the way that pipe was capped off, is it possible to say if it is/was water or gas, or both services' pipes are capped off in the same way?

mat.

[Harry Bloomfield]

On 03/02/2004 mat. opined:-

Now I can see the picture ;-)

The gas pipe (2) appears to be a recently installed one. Looking at the photo, it appears to have an unsealed hole around it where it comes through the wall. It appears it might be a modern steel pipe served with hemp?

I would expect the capped pipe if a water pipe, to look quite similar to the other water pipe and come through at a similar height to it.

For the above reasons I would therefore suggest it is probably the old gas pipe and will likely have been cut off at the other end as well. I would guess that there is no gas in it, that it was simply sealed until the old gas main was cut off. I would suggest the new pipe was put in round about the time your home was converted from coal gas to higher pressure natural gas.

That is just my guess based upon what I can see and interpret from the photo. Ring Transco up and ask them to confirm my guess and that the pipe can be safely removed.

[Ade]

Any chance 'pipe' no. 1 on the left could be a disused (but possibly still live) lead-sheathed electricity supply cable? It does look as though it has some kind of outer covering similar to the pitch-soaked cloth (or whatever) old supply cables had. The blob on the end could be some kind of sealing chamber.

Just a thought...

[I am everyone on usenet!]

Harry Bloomfield retched coalhole - service mains + damp proofing onto my recliner:

I spy with my little eye something beginning with N.

[mat.]

thanks for all the replies so far, been very helpful.

i have another query though, if indeed this lead pipe is not the responsibility of the water supplier, should i replace it before attemping to waterproof the room?

in case i sell the flat in the future, will this lead pipe make it difficult for a buyer to get a mortgage on the flat?

regards, mat.

[Andrew Mawson]

Well if there is a problem having a lead watermain re mortages you won't be alone - 10's (maybe 100's) of thousands of houses are lead supplied still.

Andrew

[N. Thornton]

I dont see how lead piping would affect the odds of you making mortgage payments, nor their ability to sell the house should it prove necessary.

Regards, NT

[drifter]

snip

err...umm.. if I may demure...

When it comes to letting through a house sale, solicitors & bldg socs are getting ever more pernickety about what is stated in house survey reports & are asking ever more searching questions of sellers. Partly this due to law changes & partly due to court decisions.

A friend had it noted that his roof didn't meet the current bldg regs by the buyer's BS surveyor, even though it complied fully when it was built 20 years ago. Guess what? It had to be modified before the transaction went through. He had deep suspicions there was a surveyor looking for work for his mates somewhere, but he's just thoroughly uncharitable :-{{

FWIIW I'd suggest you at least take this opportunity to identify & label each pipe etc & mark its status (dead/live/in - use nb date your labels), even if you then decide to leave things as they are. Could save you a little hassle when it comes to selling.

[N. Thornton]

It didnt, half the housing stock in Britain doesnt meet building regs or come anywhere near them. If he chose to play the game of doing pointless work in order to get the sale that was his choice, but not one many sellers would take seriously.

Regards, NT

[drifter]

It's not the buyers that matter - it's the mortgage providers, unless you want to hang about waiting on that cash buyer to show up. The house selling transaction is far far tighter than it was even 5 years ago & out of all recognition to 30 years ago. Eg solictors routinely check up whether you've had ALL relevant Planning & Building Reg permissions. They do this directly via their enquiry sheets & via local authority seaches. Ditto for the mortgage provider who doesn't want to see any hanging queries on the surveyor's report. All of them examine the replies & reports carefully. They don't want to have a reclaimed house on their hands which they can't offload because they're in a legal loop.

There's lots of examples of all this on uk.d-i-y - see eg first posting on "Oh My God - Can't Sell Our House" posted 7/10/2002. For more examples, search Google eg for Windows/Double Glazing during

2001/2002 when the new regs started.

Think, if you're desperate to move & you've had your house on the market for months & months, are you going to turn down the only punter in sight? Of course not. You're going to roll over and please his Building Soc Manager.

My suggestion to OP is at the very least make sure the surveyor will have as few queries as possible whenever he shows up.

[IMM]

Only when the pipe crosses the property line is it then yours.

[IMM]

If that alcove is "under" the pavement, then walling up at your property line will leave the pies in a void, which is not allowed.

It is best to get the services renewed that require renewing; get a large bore plastic water pipe, then build a wall and fill in the void with earth. Make sure as you erect the wall it is waterproof on the outside.

[IMM]

This idot bastard cross posted a post that was aimed at only uk.d-i-y. His ISP will get to know.

[John Rouse]

In article , drifter writes

On the other hand, when our insurers were looking for any excuse not to remedy the subsidence on our house, and were working on the "spreading roof" hypothesis, the surveyor said that in theory there ought to be more diagonal bracing, but that if it had stood for 150 years like that, he could see no reason to go to the trouble of putting it in.

J.

[Bungle & Zippy]

Good for you IMM

[Dave Plowman]

Somehow, I don't think you bought a house 30 years ago. In those days you had to conform to all sorts of regulations with the then mutual building societies that just don't exist these days.