Drain Inspection - Minor Build Up of Waste Water.

[SteveBkr99]

We are in the process of selling our house. We seem to be somewhat challenged by the buyer who is asking countless questions we were not expecting and / or appear trivial - minor. Their survey report reported that the external inspection chamber showed a minor build up of waste. We challenged this as we have never had any build up of waste or blockage in the 20 years we have owned the house. The only point we can consider is that the drain does have a flow of liquid just enough to wet the underside of the pipe passing through it when the manhole cover of the chamber is raised. I have never considered that this could be what is being classified as minor build up of waste. We are being told by the buyers to have the drains inspected and cleaned. Any view on stance appreciated. Steve.

 

[Burnerman]

That's perfectly ok......try flushing the loo or emptying the bath or whatever and the water should flow gently away, taking any solids with it. If the water is allowed to cascade through, the solids can get left behind.
John

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

I suspect they are looking for any excuse to knock a few £ off the purchase price..... If the drains are shared with a neighbour at the point in question, technically any problems would be the Water Company's, (as Sewerage provider), problem. Some standing water in a drain is not a major issue, if it's half the depth of the pipe and leaving solids behind then it's time to start worrying....

Jetting and a CCTV survey is unlikely to give much change from a couple of hundred £, and if they want to start being picky over the CCTV survey, could cost even more...... If you've had no problems for 20 years, it's unlikely they will unless they're the type to stuff wipes, gallons of fat and everything else you shouldn't put down a drain, down the drains......

 

[ree]

Wear thick gloves and clean out your gulleys and gulley traps - lift the MH cover and observe while a bucket of water is thrown down the gulley and gushes thro the MH chamber.

 

[SteveBkr99]

Thanks for all the comments, this helps me a lot. I just wanted to test out a few more questions. I decided to further inspect the chamber last night and observe the flow whilst flushing toilets and running taps etc, as without asking the buyers surveyor (which may be our next step), we remain baffled on what they constitute as a 'minor build up of waste'. There are 2 pipes that meet in the chamber, a main pipe and a side pipe that has a drop of about 1 - 2 inches onto the main pipe. All I could see that may qualify this observation of minor build up is that the piping in the chamber does tend to have a thin film of skin (like the skin that forms at the top of a cup of milk coffee if you let the drink go cold) / or maybe the word is webbing? that clings in places to the bottom of the piping, some of it being moved on by the flow of waste water, some of it sticking to the piping. This is what I simply tend to powerwash when I lift the chamber lid up periodically, just as a matter of keeping the chamber and the few feet of piping either way of the chamber squeeky clean, not because I have ever considered that this could be a problem in its infancy. The only other point to mention is that when I tested the side pipe that joins the main pipe with a number '2' from the top of the house, when it dropped from the side pipe onto the main pipe in the chamber, most of it carried on its downstream journey but some waste was pushed back slightly a few inches up the main pipe (but still sat within the chamber) to accomodate the full 'load' dropped onto the pipe. I noticed that this started to immediately seep away down the main pipe slowly but concluded that this may require a little help from more liquid arriving down the main pipe to fully clear, and so maybe this is the result of the 'skin' forming. I will not post any more questions but would appreciate if what I have described remains as normal drains behaviour. Many thanks.

 

[HERTS P&D]

Phone around to have it jetted out, get a fixed price. Local to me, I would charge you £90 so not big money but would clear any fat build up.

Andy

 

[HERTS P&D]

Post some pictures of the manhole (internal)

Andy