Imperial Drain inspection cover?

[Bob Minchin]

Hi All,

Can replacement pressed steel drain covers be obtained? Mine is 24" x 18" and only needs to take foot traffic being in the back garden. The surround is fine but the lid is rusting through.

TIA

Bob

[Michael Mcneil]

Whatever you are able to get is what you aught to use. They are sold as a set as no builder's supplier is going to want the other bit hanging around is he. They are not that expensive.

If the lid you buy won't fit, just lift the housing with a bolster and set the new one in with mortar.

You might want to take advantage of your need to do something about it to drop the height of the manhole. Almost every one I have ever seen is about a brick too high when set in a lawn or garden. This is due to soil settlement a year or two into a new plot.

If this is a problem with mowing lawns etc., take a course of bricks off with the housing, if that is the case. If the new level is slightly below your lawn that will be a lot easier and far more aesthetically pleasing.

For someone with modern plastic inspection pits, you may have to remove some surrounding soil to get a saw at it. You could possibly scratch the inside at a level more in line with your wants or needs and chip away at it with an hammer and chisel. Use a small wood chisel and peck away gently at it so any breaks fracture above the scratch.

You might have to use some mortar on the top to seal it.

[Andrew Gabriel]

You can only obtain the lid and rim as a matched pair new. You might be able to get just the lid from a salvage yard, but I doubt they'll bother with a pressed steel one.

It's easy to replace the whole thing -- I just had to do this with a manhole where the top row of bricks was starting to collapse in and the cast iron cover (C.1895) had a small hole where someone probably dropped something heavy on it. Although they are now called 600x450mm, I'm not sure the size has actually changed -- you might find if you buy a current pressed steel one, the lid fits.

I first bought a pressed steel one, but it felt really 'cheap' compared with the original cast iron one (well it was less than 4 quid). I took it back and changed it for a cast iron one. That cost less than a tenner. You might need to buy lifting handles too, as current cast iron covers don't seem to have hand-holds anymore, only keyholes for lifting handles.

A tip -- I cut a piece of board to make a reasonably good fit in the bottom of the manhole, both so I could stand on it rather than in whatever passed safely by underneath, and so no rubble made its way into the sewer. I used a piece of chipboard from the side of an old kitchen unit, so that if I discovered it would not come out through the new cover frame, a heavy jump onto it over the channel would likely break it into smaller pieces. In the event, I didn't need to try this out, but it made clearing up all the rubble which went down the hole very easy, and I don't think any got into the sewer.

[Matt Beard]

Where would be a good place to buy one? I have only found round ones for sale, but I know that rectangular ones are still made (for example polyplumb do one).

Matt

[Andrew Gabriel]

I got mine from Gibbs and Dandy in Luton who had perhaps ~10 or more types, going up to the sort of thing 44 ton trucks can ride over (and I couldn't lift;-). Any larger builder's merchant will stock them.