Help....southwest water refused building over sewer consent!

[Iz28]

Please help...... we want to build a single story extension but when we dug our footprint we revealed a 4" plastic sewer pipe running right through our footprint. We had CCTV completed which revealed that there is not enough fall on the pipe and southwest water have refused us building over consent. The pipe is shared and is a long standing problem, they want us to pay an extortionate amount of money to see if we can re direct the sewer! How do we increase the fall? Why can't we replace the pipe as there is inspection manhole covers a meter each side of our footprint? Has any one else experienced this problem? Please help

 

[jeds]

Replacing the pipe on your own is only going to help if doing so increases the fall. The manholes either side of your property are at fixed levels - do you know what those levels are? If the up line is sufficiently higher than the down line you might be able to gain some fall. If not the only option is go further up or down until you find a level change or divert to a different sewer.

 

[noseall]

We come across this all the time.

In every case we automatically replace or re-new the pipe beneath the proposed structure, usually in plastic. We have been doing this since before water companies decided to adopt sewers.

So, you have a sewer pipe with a history of problems but you are miffed that the water company are refusing you permission to bury it?

At first i got the impression that you were surprised to see the pipe until I read about the inspection chambers. How much fall is there and over what distance?