Soakaways in older properties. (2023 Update)

[Simon T]

Is it common for soakaways to be located at the base of the gutter pipe on older properties?

Friend of mine is living in an old house (not sure of the age, early

1900s perhaps?) and the downpipe from the gutter dissapears straight into the ground.

Anyway, damn thing was bunged up with moss sludge, so dismantled the pipe and shoved a hose down there, which backflushed the sludge out, but could only get the hosepipe down about 10" below the ground.

Shoved the end of the my pressure washer down there, felt like I was hitting stones. Couldn't see a bend in the pipe. But anyway, water seems to be flowing now, although it didn't drop below the level of whatever it was the end of my lance was touching, so couldn't see what it was and as the area is paved, would have to dig it up to see.

So, is this pipe going stright into a soakaway you think?

[Ash Burton]

It's most likely that it is but it could be going into a main drain if there is one. A video cam on a flexible probe is the only way to be sure without digging up.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

On my Victorian house - so a bit older - no soakaways. Rain water goes into the main drainage.

[Chris B]

Not just older properties. Mine was built in 1987 and is just as you describe. We are on chalk so drainage has never been a problem

[Harry Bloomfield]

If it goes to main drainage, somewhere near there will be an inspection cover. Lift the cover and pour water down the the downspout hole.

[Chris Hogg]

Likewise 1960's properties. On our recently inherited bungalow, some down pipes have a soakaway immediately underneath, others feed into the mains drainage. But planning permission for a recently installed conservatory was conditional on rainwater being piped to a soakaway dug 5 metres away from the foundations.

[Robin]

Not necessarily true: at the front of the houses here the rainwater goes into the sewer with no inspection chamber. (It's a bugger to work out when the pipes are blocked/collapsed/off on their hols/...)

[Tim Watts]

I've seen that on a 1930's property and a 1950's one.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Or a french dtain

[Tim Lamb]

Often found at 6m:-) Standard pipe length.

We once had a house dating from the Edwardian period. That had a *soft water well* : big underground brick tank with a nice arched roof. Rainwater was piped there in 3" salt glaze. Pipes also ran off at high level to a drain field under the lawn. The house had a small room known as the *tank room* and I think water was pumped there for use. Mains water led to the storage tank being removed and a toilet fitted in the space.

Bad move to discharge water near foundations! My grandfather had a house built in Cambridgeshire. The builder misread the plans and put the kitchen sink in the wrong place. To overcome the problem he used a

90deg. bend in the pipework leading to the cess pit.

When we sold the house 50 years later the couple buying knew that there had been some long standing subsidence and arranged an investigation. An excavation of the suspect foundation found that grandfather had broken the pipe at the bend by enthusiastic rodding.

40 plus years of bath and dishwashing water had done the rest.

The geological survey has the area as Greensand which is meaningless to me. Plenty of nice Chalk as well.

>

[Chris Hogg]

FWIW, Greensand is weakly agglomerated greenish sandstone underlying the Chalk in the UK, usually subdivided into Upper and Lower Greensand, and together with the Chalk, forms the principal deposits from the Cretaceous period in the UK (145 - 66 M yrs ago).

[Dave Plowman (News)]

On mine you can work it out by looking at the pipe outlets to it.

[Brian Gaff]

You are lucky to have a soakaway. (No not a Monty Python sketch), we have an extra downpipe at a right angled corner near a door to stop the water whizzing over the edge and onto unsuspecting callers at the door. This has an angled pipe on the end going straight into a flower bed, now the Camilia in there has gone berserk!

Brian

[Mario @ Luigi]

We had this, also checked all nearby drains for bubbles when flushing - none. We researched soakaways decided ours was not functioning anymore, house 1890, new regulations would put a soak away in middle of main road, and next doors garden. We had had damp ever since lived there but only investigated after flushing the gutters and flooding side of house. Also found the old iron pipe was cemented into the underground pipe as angled too near wall. Quick solution, new Downpipes angled across wall leading to kitchen drain. Took only 2 hours Not economical or point in digging up old soak away pipes.

[Fredxx]

I strong recommend you read this before you reply again to to a 3 year old post:

Most of us will have absolutely no idea what you've just 'had'.

[Jimmy Stewart ...]

shocking ...overloading the sewer ......

[Mario & Luigi]

I Read the top post of thread I was replying too.. my reply is now in the stack so not sure why you cannot see it as a thread. I could have pasted the whole thing but didn’t think needed too. But as it’s not come through? It was.... ‘is it common for soakaways to be at the base of the gutter pipe in older properties.... I found the post while researching ours and although 3 years old. We had similar issue last week, plus I read all the threads that help our issue last week so perhaps someone else with this issue may want advice this week :) Thanks for advice I’ll pop original post in first next time.

[Mario & Luigi]

‘Shocking overloading the sewer’. Reply. We also researched the road where we live. 50% of the houses in our Road now divert their gutters by overground pipes towards the main road. When we have Heavy Downpours the road floods like a river running down the sides towards the business at the bottom of the road. Which gets flooded. Much More Shocking. :)

[Roger Hayter]

Of course if *everyone* diverted their surface water to the sewer then it would probably be the sewer backing up into people's houses and running down the street.

[alan_m]

That's because you are posting via home owners hub while the rest of us are using newsreaders with a Usenet feed. Home owners hub promotes posts from 3 to 15 years ago as if they were posted yesterday. In general, cannot remember what was posted 3 to 15 years ago and most Usenet users cannot be bothered to launch yet another program just to visit a web site that just "steals" posts from the original sources and then pretends that the "hub" is the source.

See

The DIY Usenet group has maybe 1000 posts a week. Most subscribers cannot remember the context of what was posted yesterday let alone 3 years ago in your case, and from up to 15 years ago in most posts that are dragged out of archives from the hub interface.