Build-over agreement

[XrayDave]

Hi,

Happy New Year folks!

My daughter is wanting to extend her house at the rear with a single-storey, 'L'-shaped wrap-around to provide a large kitchen/diner & family space/garden room at the back.

She is the right-hand house of a semi, with a narrow driveway on the right leading to a brick garage.

There is a gap ao about 1 metre between the rear of the house and the garage.

A shared drain runs along the rear of my daughters (in this 1 metre gap) before meeting a rectangular manhole in front of the garage and turning down her driveway to the street.

The drain serves her house, the attached neighbour and two more semis further up the street (so a total of six houses - hers being the sixth house). My understanding is that as such, this is a public drain / shared drain (apologies if I haven't used the correct terminology) and the resposibility of the water company (Severn Trent).

She would like to extend over the manhole and would need a build-over permission - correct?

AmI right in thinking that if she was allowed to build over the drain, then the manhole woud have to stay and coudn't be inside a habitable part of the house (but a store room would be fine)? Or is it not that simple and different water companies in different parts of the country have different rules/regulations?

If the manole could be in a habitable part of the extension - does a utility room count as a habitable roomor a store room?

Are there manhole covers which seal (to prevent obnoxious smells) and can be tiled over with floor tiles?

Thanks in advance,

Dave

 

[RonnyRaygun]

Severn Trent won't allow you to have an internal inspection chamber on a public sewer.

Any part of the property that has been built to building regulations (or would typically be inaccessible by the water company) would require a build over agreement, regardless of what the room is being used for.

You can build over the pipe but the inspection chamber will need to be moved off the main run.
This could just be an external inspection chamber built like for like compared to the existing one, with rodding access to the existing run.

 

[XrayDave]

Thanks Ronny

I thought so. So that means that the area in front of the garage can't have an inspection chamber (manhole) inside - ragardless of the 'use' of the internal space?

As it stands, the manhole (inspection chamber?) provides access to the pipe run behind the houses and also down the driveway which is at 90-degrees.

Is there any way around this other than dog-legging the drains around the outside of the proposed extension??

Incidentally, I said the water company was Severn Trent, but it may be Yorkshire Water but I guess that makes no difference.

Dave

 

[^woody^]

You are better off posting a plan with the pipes, the users and the buildings on to get opinion on the best way to deal with the layout.

Inspection chambers cannot normally be inside, but may not always be necessary.

 

[XrayDave]

Hi Woody

Is this sketch good enough?

Regards

Dave

 

[^woody^]

You may be able to convince the water company to do away with the manhole and have a rodding/access point at the other end of the garage (vertically to that run on the drawing), or if the garage is going, somewhere outside the new extension.

Part of this convincing may involve renewing all the pipes beneath the new extension.

 

[XrayDave]

You may be able to convince the water company to do away with the manhole and have a rodding/access point at the other end of the garage (vertically to that run on the drawing), or if the garage is going, somewhere outside the new extension.

Part of this convincing may involve renewing all the pipes beneath the new extension.

Now that's a good idea - hadn't though of that.

Like this (don't know what the correct symbol is for a rodding point).

New extension is to partially cover the footprint of the existing garage.

Dave