Damaged porcelain drain

[robgraham]

There is a bit of conjecture here but on the evidence of having to rod the back bathroom drain rather frequently :>(, plus the fact that in an earlier rodding expedition, where an access point had to be dug up, I could not get the plunger passed a point some 15m into a 50m run, all leads to the probability that the drain is fractured.

If we add to this the fact that this drain is not all that deep (can't remember how deep but digging up the access point was much less than expected !), was laid possibly 80 years ago and cars have been parked on top if it all that time .... well it all adds up doesn't it.

So this summer will see a digging session - thank goodness the guy up the road has mini-diggers :>).

The question is this - I'll be constrained by the depth of the existing drain when I re-lay in plastic so how do I protect the plastic from the soil pressure due to the vehicles. There is no question of options/choices here - the drain has to go where it is already (1) and we cannot park our cars anywhere else.

Thanks for any help.

Rob

(1) It could possibly be re-directed through the house but the thought of that is horrendous - rip up floors, the bathroom, the kitchen, etc. and anyway is it legal to lay a drain over the solum ?

[sm_jamieson]

Encase the drain in concrete. This is in the building regs for pipes less than a certain depth from the surface - can't remember the depth off-hand. Simon.

[Phil L]

Just make sure the plastic drain is encased in gravel before you backfill the cutting, this is for expansion and also to stop any hard materials like bricks, sharp stones etc from damaging the pipe, which incidentally are extremely strong. As an example of how strong they are, we used small sections (about 18in long) to manouvre steel girders into position - we had to move them approximately 80m from where they were dropped, over to where they were required. The girders were over 8m in length and were over 100kg per m - two sections of pipe held them up off the ground.