Why did drainpipes used to have a box on the wall?

[Commander Kinsey]

And somebody checks this regularly do they? Same "rule" applies in the UK, but I sometimes ignore it if the wrong pipe is closer to connect to.

[Commander Kinsey]

It isn't on older houses. I don't know when they introduced storm drains as being seperate. I agree it would be strange if they had those but connected the houses just to the sewer.

Contrarywise, it is in fact Clare who is not allowing UK folk to see her replies, which is rude.

[Commander Kinsey]

What have you got against sharing baths? Are you really ugly when naked?

[Commander Kinsey]

How?

[Commander Kinsey]

Great way to make your land even soggier. I do the reverse and have a sump pump to lower the water table.

[GB]

Yeah right Hucker.

--

[Commander Kinsey]

They didn't check mine when I modified it, because I didn't tell anyone I modified it. It's my f****ng house.

Shed, garage, conservatory, not need permission here.

Same here, and with the conservatory. The rain would have ended up in the ground anyway before it was built.

[NY]

My parents have a holiday cottage in a tiny village that has no mains drainage. All the houses have their own septic tank (two-chamber sewage treatment unit that does more than just store the sewage, as happens with a cesspit). However to reduce the amount of water that goes into the septic tank, all the grey water is piped to a communal "land drain" that discharges into a nearby stream. I'm sure that arrangement contravenes almost every health and safety and environmental law known to man!

Do many houses have a rainwater drain in the street? I thought that usual arrangement was for there to be a soakaway under the lawn for rainwater, so the rainwater and grey/sewage water never mixed. As far as I know, our house doesn't put rainwater into the septic tank, but pipes it into the same soakaway under the lawn that is used for the outflow of treated sewage water from the septic tank.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The replacement of all in one drain systems by 'rain into local buffering via soakaways or flood ponds' and 'all grey water and sewage to be treated', has been gradually implemented over the last 50 years or more.

There is a massive benefit in terms of flood and hygiene control from buffering rainwater as near to where it falls as possible. or, failing that, to get it into the natural ditch/stream/river/sea drainage systems as fast as possible. The last thing you want to do with it is mix it with sewage needing treatment and risk raw sewage mixing with flood water or overwhelming treatment plants.

There is an argument that grey water might be treated separately, but in the end a three way system is a bit too complex, and there is no telling how many people pee in the shower, or flush rotting food down the sink.

[GB]

He is a known troll. Just put him in the k/f and move on.

[Commander Kinsey]

Every time I've walked near a septic tank it has stunk to high heaven. They're a disgusting invention.

I thought all streets had those - where do you think the rainwater goes that flows off the road?

Soakaways don't work, not in Scotland anyway. The land is already waterlogged, you can't shove more into it.

How would a soakaway prevent that? Every house I know of (apart form old ones where it's all one pipe) have to pipes, one goes into the rainwater drains and meets up with water flowing off the road, and the other gets treated. Rain into the rivers, grey and brown into the sewage treatment plant. All a soakaway would do is to put less into the rainwater system which goes straight into a river anyway.

You must have a huge lawn. I couldn't soak that much water away. The lawn is already full of rainwater that landed directly on it, you can't add more to that.

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

In the near of Scotland puddle clay is just under the vegitable soil that's why....