Blocked drain - inspection chamber

cdg

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Bath
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United Kingdom
Hello,

I've been trying to unblock a kitchen/garden drain and lifted the inspection chamber to the front of the house to see what was in there. I found 6 or so inlets. These presumably come from my and surrounding houses.

I'd bought a set of rods but the inlets in my house's direction were blocked with a plastic blue cover. What are these? At a guess I thought they were non return valves and this being the case I thought how do you rod upstream? Do they give way with a certain amount of force?

I have two smaller inspection chambers (for want of a better word) and when I tried to rod these I again could not get the rod through as there seemed to be a blockage which sounded plasticky - almost like another set of darned non return flap/valves. I could rod downstream though (fat lot of use of course).

I would rod downstream from the actual drain which overflows but the pipe is too sharp to get the rods down and the auger I have doesn't have the muscle to find a way through.

Does anyone have any suggestions? The house is c1990 and I am just about to call a pro in but am baulking at the £100ish charge (which I can hardly spare) especially as I bought the rods.
 
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they usualy have 5 inlets and 1 outletits not unusual to find 4 of the 5 inlets capped off, try the rods on there own first just to find out which is the inlet
 
Unlikely to be non return valves, these chambers are preformed with a 90 and 45 deg inlet on each side, and channel straight through bottom. Unused inlets are simply blanked off, likely what you have here. I dont advise you break them, whatever is behind may start finding its way into the chamber and cause you further issues.....

Do you know what type of gulley you have thats giving the problems? Is it a standard gulley on a 'tick' trap? Like this:
http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat...HZOSFFA?productId=19993&imageNo=null&ts=22632
If you're brave enough, don some decent rubber gloves and feel if there's any crud in the bottom blocking it. These likely to have smaller, usually 4" square grating on top. Other type is a bottle gulley such as this:
http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat...HZOSFFA?productId=86226&imageNo=null&ts=22799

Some have larger square grating, access for rodding is either, remove black 'funnel' insert inside gulley. Outlet will be exposed for rodding, you may find water drains at this point, again if its crud in base causing blockage. Other method with Osma types is remove small plug in 'shoulder' inside gulley, rod through this.

Most blockages in gulleys are due to fat and/or silt build up in bottom, rare the pipe from a gulley blocks.
 
Thanks for both responses.

I had another go but called the pros in this AM. He's having a toughish time at the moment. The manhole cover had been patio'd over some decade or more ago so has now been dug out and was completely full.

He's jetting it and I can see the next door neighbour's is nicely over flowing too. Looks like we're in for a long one as that's not clearing it.

Glad I didn't try it myself for too long now.


PS The original trap looks to be a Universal Gully Trap but the problem is evidently now much bigger - and more expensive...
 
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Souns like that may have been blocked for a while. Why people bury manhole covers is beyond me, they are there for a reason! Hopefully you will get sorted now, bear in mind all who use the drain upstream of the blockage should be prepared to contribute to the cost of clearing it.

May be handy to ascertain the cause, if possible. Some folk seem to think the W.C. is a waste disposal unit, if there's anything that shouldnt be down there thats caused the problems, advise your neighbours NOT to flush it away in future. (Wipes are a classic example....)
 
Thanks for the advice. The majority just looked like clumps of grease and washing powder when eventually it flooded down. It took a hell of a pounding. Made worse by the access point we needed at a neighbours having a fence built over the top. As you say, why people build on them...

I'll try and get a contribution from the other two houses. I've taken a few pictures in case they'd like to see evidence!!

Guessing the bill going to be £250 ish - which is 249 more than I have so a bit more on the overdraft.

Next door's confier roots also starting to invade the pipes too

All the best.
 
I think that you have got away with a very cheap job there if he had to power jet it!

You should have got the neighbours involved at the outset before any expense was incurred.

Always rod drains upstream!

Its always a problem with inspection chambers being covered over. But the same applies in kitchens and bathrooms.

Tony
 
Well, of course, I thought it was going to be one of those 15 minute easy jobs that makes me look like a fool for not having the snake to put down. In the end it was 3 hours (he's capped it at that and is still here, nearly four hours later). He has enjoyed some of my best coffee and a Flake though!

The neighbours aren't bad sorts and I can try to recover some costs at least. I figure they're all still working in their white collar jobs so they can dig deep!

The main problem was not knowing where the run was. I studied the Wessex water plans (VERY vague) and they seemed to indicate that I may have a clear run into the main sewer from the front storm drain. This was complete bunkum as the run goes behind all our our houses with ALL manhole covers hidden underground and then back round the side of the row.

I could have had three sets of neighbours to question and ironically the one who is party to it had witnessed no blockages although the blockage was on their property so I was fighting a losing battle.

I had tried to get the original plans (1989) to view from the council but funnily they couldn't (wouldn't) help. That might have saved a LOT of time but I would never have cleared it myself.

I am now informed that drains like these are being adopted in 2 years so I'll be holding off any other drain issues until then.

What better way to spend a week off between jobs.

BTW - I used a local firm after ringing round all known providers. These guys were not the cheapest but significantly cheaper than the biggest on the market. Glad I took this route. They've done a good job.

I am now skint but at least my drains will clear.

PS Bill just (12 noon) came in at 220. Happy(ish)
 
You may be getting confused here! Storm drains in a building of that age will be completely seperate from the foul sewers. Storm will take run off from roofs and paved areas, works its way eventually to a stream or river. Foul, which takes the W.C.'s, bathroom and kitchen etc waste goes to the sewerage works to be treated. Drains at front you spoke of could well be storm. Foul runs, as you've found out, seperately at the rear.

Council's are never much use, here someone managed to 'lose' I believe, the plans for the network when responsibility passed back to the Water people. They now have all the info on their shiny laptops, but it doesnt seem to be very up to date as I found out!

Those conifer roots need seeing to!!! I attended a job recently where both W.C.'s went into the same stack. Stack had blocked underground and we were unable to rod it. Only solution was to dig, and expose the pipe. Roots from the adjacent confiners had found a way in, and over time wrapped themselves into a large tight ball, completely blocking the pipe. Its possible in your situation a root cutter could be used to remove them if required but again this is cost, and only a temporary measure. I think prevention is better than cure!
 
There's no doubting that I was confused Hugh!

The manhole cover at the front looked very promising but as I realize now was just to take away surface.

I'll get him to sort his conifer out. As the guy from XXX XXX said "Conifers, the drain clearers friend".

All the best
 
Drains are a bit of a nightmare if you dont know much about them. Usually forgotten until something goes wrong, as you've discovered some companies rely on ignorance to charge large amounts for putting things right!

Glad you're getting sorted, feel free to ask if you need to know anything else!

Regards.
 

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