Looking for any professional advice or personal experience on an extension over a (believed) public sewer.
We were undergoing a full house refurb and were using the same company to do a loft conversion and single storey rear extension. House is a mid-terrace c.1920. Loft was finished and rear extension shell nearly fully constructed, velux in, bifolds in. Just a few ridge tiles, bit of flashing and guttering to do. Internal work to finish, including knock through of existing house wall and insertion of rsj. Company called me the week before Christmas and told me they had gone into liquidation, so no more work. Probably c.£3k out of pocket.
I've had another builder to take a look and am looking at having to find an extra £10k+ to finish the work. Obviously not great.
He has raised the issue of the build over, which I thought was all fine.
The soil pipes run down the back of the houses and into a sewer that runs along the back of the terrace before branching off into mains sewer. Fairly standard for this period of property.
We had a manhole at rear of house that was falling into the new extension. Not sure if this had always been there or if it was only put in when a downstairs loo was added sometime in the eighties to cope with the connection of the extra ground level soil pipe.
Private building inspectors asked Thames water if build over was required, which they said it was. Building company submitted application for build over, which was agreed by Thames Water and paid for by us. The drawings submitted to Thames clearly show the presence of a man hole cover and the plans to build over replacing with an airtight seal, not moving the manhole to outside the extension. The Thames agreement says agreed as per drawings as long as complies with appendix. Point 6 of appendix says manholes on a public sewer can't be built over, or located inside new structures even with airtight seal.
I fear that either builder or Thames has messed up, possibly both, meaning more cost if it needs digging up and moving as foundations, walls, sewer reinforcement etc already down. Surely Thames would never have agreed something that was in such a complete contradiction to their own appendix?
Shouldn't this also have been picked up by building inspectors?
I clearly can't raise it with the builders as they don't exist anymore, although they were quite a big company covering Essex and Kent so would like to think they knew what they were doing. The work done was all to a good standard. Going to call Thames tomorrow, but hoping someone can tell me that it's all fine, or is this the icing on the cake for a bit of a building nightmare..?
We were undergoing a full house refurb and were using the same company to do a loft conversion and single storey rear extension. House is a mid-terrace c.1920. Loft was finished and rear extension shell nearly fully constructed, velux in, bifolds in. Just a few ridge tiles, bit of flashing and guttering to do. Internal work to finish, including knock through of existing house wall and insertion of rsj. Company called me the week before Christmas and told me they had gone into liquidation, so no more work. Probably c.£3k out of pocket.
I've had another builder to take a look and am looking at having to find an extra £10k+ to finish the work. Obviously not great.
He has raised the issue of the build over, which I thought was all fine.
The soil pipes run down the back of the houses and into a sewer that runs along the back of the terrace before branching off into mains sewer. Fairly standard for this period of property.
We had a manhole at rear of house that was falling into the new extension. Not sure if this had always been there or if it was only put in when a downstairs loo was added sometime in the eighties to cope with the connection of the extra ground level soil pipe.
Private building inspectors asked Thames water if build over was required, which they said it was. Building company submitted application for build over, which was agreed by Thames Water and paid for by us. The drawings submitted to Thames clearly show the presence of a man hole cover and the plans to build over replacing with an airtight seal, not moving the manhole to outside the extension. The Thames agreement says agreed as per drawings as long as complies with appendix. Point 6 of appendix says manholes on a public sewer can't be built over, or located inside new structures even with airtight seal.
I fear that either builder or Thames has messed up, possibly both, meaning more cost if it needs digging up and moving as foundations, walls, sewer reinforcement etc already down. Surely Thames would never have agreed something that was in such a complete contradiction to their own appendix?
Shouldn't this also have been picked up by building inspectors?
I clearly can't raise it with the builders as they don't exist anymore, although they were quite a big company covering Essex and Kent so would like to think they knew what they were doing. The work done was all to a good standard. Going to call Thames tomorrow, but hoping someone can tell me that it's all fine, or is this the icing on the cake for a bit of a building nightmare..?
