Down pipe, waste and drain confusion?

robodelfy · 21 Jul 2020

Hi, I'm trying to sort out the back of my terracedhterraced Victorian houseahouse garden.

As you can see in the photos, the soil stack ends up just going directly into the ground, where I imagine it bends away from the house and meets the sewage pipe that the neighbours say run horizontally across all our gardens.

Then the gutter down pipe travels a few metres from the house and then just empties on the soil in my garden.

Is this normal? My neighbour says hers goes into a drain

Should I be doing something different with the rain water/gutter pipe? Also is it normal the soil stack just goes into the ground like that?

Should I have a drain somewhere. Sorry I'm new to all this!

Thanks

Notch7 · 21 Jul 2020

Ideally rainwater discharge should go to a soak away 5 metres from the house and not too close to your boundary.

It seems to be discharging a few metres from the house so is probably fine.

If you want to deal with it properly, dig a soak away and put in a soil pipe leading to it. The best soakaways these days are aquacell type crates as they have virtually 100% capacity.

Bear in mind soakaways only work in porous soil, so you might want to do a percolation test first.

denso13 · 21 Jul 2020

robodelfy said:
Also is it normal the soil stack just goes into the ground like that?

Yes, that's normal.

Nige F · 21 Jul 2020

Why is it wrapped with a plastic bag ?

robodelfy · 21 Jul 2020

Nige F said:
Why is it wrapped with a plastic bag ?

I was knocking render off the wall and didn't want it going down

GoodDIYjob · 22 Jul 2020

denso13 said:
Yes, that's normal.

The soil stack should extend up the wall and terminate above 2nd floor height with a vent cap grille. Has yours been removed while you were hacking render off. Or was it left at ground level like that by previous owners?

robodelfy · 22 Jul 2020

GoodDIYjob said:
The soil stack should extend up the wall and terminate above 2nd floor height with a vent cap grille. Has yours been removed while you were hacking render off. Or was it left at ground level like that by previous owners?

I took off the soil stack to replace it, and then found the wall was a mess. Now I'm planning to get external wall insulation. The previous soil stack was a mess, but was set up basically correctly as you say.

I'm more wondering about the gutter that ends up just going into soil in my garden. Is this acceptable? or should it go into a drain. I'm thinking that all the rain water off one side of the roof is a lot of water. It also explains why the fig tree that was there before was wildly out of control! It had its own personal watering supply.

GoodDIYjob · 22 Jul 2020

robodelfy said:
I
I'm more wondering about the gutter that ends up just going into soil in my garden. Is this acceptable? or should it go into a drain. I'm thinking that all the rain water off one side of the roof is a lot of water. It also explains why the fig tree that was there before was wildly out of control! It had its own personal watering supply.

Well I agree with what @Notch7 wrote in that reply. It is not ideal. Best solution is dig a 1m3 soakaway cube. But, it has been that way probably a long time, the ground slopes away from the house so the water table will too. You don't have damp wall problems anywhere near discharge?

The other option is to configure some drainage gulley into the main drains if the house and adjacent houses are on a shared foul and rainwater system. i.e. rainwater goes into the main drain and mixes with foul waste. However, it is generally frowned upon to go back to mixed system if the water was dealt with separately by discharging in the garden.

robodelfy · 22 Jul 2020

GoodDIYjob said:
Well I agree with what @Notch7 wrote in that reply. It is not ideal. Best solution is dig a 1m3 soakaway cube. But, it has been that way probably a long time, the ground slopes away from the house so the water table will too. You don't have damp wall problems anywhere near discharge?

The other option is to configure some drainage gulley into the main drains if the house and adjacent houses are on a shared foul and rainwater system. i.e. rainwater goes into the main drain and mixes with foul waste. However, it is generally frowned upon to go back to mixed system if the water was dealt with separately by discharging in the garden.

Thanks, this is all new to me. I only just learnt about the soaraway box from you! I could dig a soakaway box in if it would be helpful. Do you think it needs to be that size minimum?

Ian H · 22 Jul 2020

There could be a gully burried at the bottom of the rainwater pipe and someone has diverted it due to a blockage.

Hugh Jaleak · 22 Jul 2020

How old is the Property?

robodelfy · 22 Jul 2020

Hugh Jaleak said:
How old is the Property?

Early 1900s I imagine

dilalio · 23 Jul 2020

It's not rocket science to understand why its preferred to keep rainwater and sewerage separate... The former requires no treatment and can go straight to ground, as any that falls straight to earth, would do.

Capturing it on our roofs, roads, paths and other hard surfacing and sending it into the sewerage system is unnecessary and costly (financially and environmentally).

Hugh Jaleak · 23 Jul 2020

robodelfy said:
Early 1900s I imagine

Properties of that era rarely had separate systems of drainage, rainwater from the rear either went in with the foul, or onto the ground. (The front roofs were often drained straight onto the road, where the water found its way into the road gullies, which were piped separately to a suitable discharge point.) I'd hazard a guess it used to go to a gulley, and as Ian has said, that gulley has become blocked, so the pipe was diverted away rather than the gulley be unblocked.

Some further investigation perhaps required.

robodelfy · 23 Jul 2020

Hugh Jaleak said:
Properties of that era rarely had separate systems of drainage, rainwater from the rear either went in with the foul, or onto the ground. (The front roofs were often drained straight onto the road, where the water found its way into the road gullies, which were piped separately to a suitable discharge point.) I'd hazard a guess it used to go to a gulley, and as Ian has said, that gulley has become blocked, so the pipe was diverted away rather than the gulley be unblocked.

Some further investigation perhaps required.

Ok thanks thats interesting. It must have been like that forever. Its a good few metres from the house, and down a couple of steps so Im guessing this is safe enough to not affect the house? I had subsidence issues a while ago from a leaking drain so I'm paranoid!

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Down pipe, waste and drain confusion?

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