Shared water supply between 3 houses ?

[wwwebber]

Hi, I've been inquiring previously about hot water cylinders and what to do with my poor mains cold flow rate etc via this thread :-

https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/water-flow-rate-and-unvented-cylinder-question.502146/page-2

However, things have very much moved on so I thought I'd branch into another thread as this has now turned into another issue entirely.

So, in order to remove the two old internal stopcocks the plumber needed to turn off the mains supply in the street. Problem 1 - where is it ???. Nothing outside my house. There's one next door in front of my neighbours house so that must be it - a shared supply / stopcock. Nope - turning this off didnt affect our supply

So it must be the one two doors down ??. However, this stopcock was very old and was seized closed. Severn Trent now on the case to renew / fix but its likely that this one is ours.

Now, the bigger issue here is that it seems that this supply is shared between three houses and my plumber suggests that this is not right and should be fixed by Severn Trent. Upon giving this further thought we have realised that the other two houses were built (probs 40 odd years ago) on land originally owned by the property I am living in and the builders wrongly or rightly connected all three properties to this original supply / stopcock which lies outside the farthest property from me.

Whilst Severn Trent look into this I wonder if anyone has knowledge or experience with this type of situation, specifically :-

• I am aware that external supplies / stop cocks can be shared between two properties but is it ok to share between 3 properties ? If not, should Severn Trent address it without charge ?
• I am now concerned that the feed pipe to my house thus runs beneath these two other properties before it gets to mine. Is that plausible or should I not be worrying ?
• Also, bearing in mind that homeowners are now responsible for pipework starting from the external stopcock, so who is responsible for putting this right ?. I would be quite miffed if I had to pay for a new feed into my house from any new external stopcock that Severn Trent may install

Any insight from folk here would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Shared supplies are quite common in properties built up to the 1950's round here, a lot of the Council estates that were built after WW2 are fed from sub mains that run along the rear of the properties, some they dont even know where to isolate without turning off the whole street. Friends have one such property, Anglian Water had to fit a new external stoptap onto a live supply, not too difficult if doing it externally though.

Normal practice says the property is responsible for the supply up to the boundary, whereby it's then the suppliers responsibility. Replacing the service pipe to the boundary is usually the property owners responsibility, the Water Company will then inspect and connect to the supply if they are happy. Likewise, any issues with pipework on private property is usually the responsibility of the property the pipe supplies, so any pipe feeding you, if it springs a leak on your neighbours property, is your responsibility to fix.

The original supply to my house came in through the neighbours property, about 5 doors away, and then teed off to feed a number of properties. We've all since had independent supplies put in, but this pipework still runs under the rear gardens to my house where I capped it off.

 

[wwwebber]

Thanks, seems to support what I've just been reading on the OFWAT website. I think all that Severn Trent is responsible for here is to replace the seized external stoptap and nothing more as everything else is above board. If we want a dedicated supply we'd have to pay for it I guess.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

You can DIY a new supply if you dont mind digging! Did one for the local football club the other year, never digging again by hand.....

 

[wwwebber]

Good point - but I'd still need to pay for a new dedicated "communication pipe" and stop tap attached to the mains in the rd ?

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

They may do it for free if a replacement supply. Any of the existing lead pipework? Look at the 'Lead replacement programme', maybe some useful info there for you.

 

[wwwebber]

I really don't know if any of the existing pipework is lead but I'll look into it - thank you