Guttering and bathroom soil waste

[Matthew]

Hi,

This maybe a rather stupid question but here goes. In our new house we have the standard man hole cover at the back of the house which contains the junction point for the soil pipes for the bathrooms etc.

All of the house guttering drain pipes drop down the outside walls and disappears into the ground. I cant find any evidence of an outside open grid etc Can I presume that the guttering rain water and the house soil waste will run through independent sewage pipes to the road outside the house or not.

The reason I would like to know is that one of the gutter drain pipes seems to be blocked at the bottom somewhere and I didnt want to blast debris further down the system if it was going towards the bathroom sewer system. Its a 70's house if this is of any help. I dont really know that much about ground and sewer systems so dont laugh if this is a silly question!

Thanks, Matthew

[Tony Bryer]

The rainwater may well go to a soakaway

[Matthew]

What is does a soakaway consist of and do I assume that there is one for each of the 4 drainpipes? Thanks, Matthew

[Sean Mc]

Mathew a soakaway is a hole dug several meters away from you house, ho

far away and how deep depends on you local building code. The hole is then filled with hardcore such as bricks, boulders. Th rain then soaks in to the ground.

With your house being built in the 70's, I would guess you have one

-- Sean Mc

[Hugo Nebula]

On 25 Oct 2005 08:00:11 -0700, a particular chimpanzee named "Matthew" randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

Rainwater drainage can go to one of 4 places;

1. Into the foul drainage. You would (or should) see trapped gullies at the bottom of the downpipes. This is more common on older (pre

1940's) houses or small infill developments in urban areas.

1. Into separate surface water drains, and then either to a nearby watercourse or into separate sewers. There won't be a trapped gully to the downpipe, but if you can see two inspection chambers alongside each other in the road, this is a sure sign.

2. Into soakaways. These are drainage 'pits' in grassed areas, usually one or two per house (one at the front & one at the rear). They _should_ have rodding access points to them but rarely do. Over the years, the minimum distance from any building has gone from 3m to

5m.

1. Straight into the ground at the bottom of the downpipes. Not a good idea, and even in the 1970's should have been spotted by the BCO and put right at the time. Don't necessarily discount this, however.

I suspect that your drainage is either 2 or 3.

[Matt]

Make that 5 (a modified number 2)

Into separate surface water drains, and then into separate sewers WITH a trapped gully. Surely more common than 2?