Outdoor Drain Blockage

[cwhaley]

I appear to have a blockage on an outside drain. Foul water is backing up from the point pictured, which is a bottle gulley made by Osma (4D901).

I'll be rodding it later to clear the suspected blockage, but I have a few questions first.

- what is the purpose of the rubber bung on these units? When I pulled it off, there was a mass of bubbling and gurgling.

- having felt around the gulley, there's no obvious outlet to the sides or at the bottom. From what I can work out, the outlet is behind the bung, but I won't be able to get any rodding equipment there.

Our drainage system is on a private sewer consisting of just us and next door. All the surface water and foil water goes into this private drain, and then on into the public sewer.

We already have problems with a vacuum in the bathroom drainage, as the previous owners decided to cut the soil stack in half and then terminate under the roofline with an AAV when they did the extension. I'll be having a proper stack and air vent put back in ASAP.

 

[Exedon]

Remove the bung you may be able to use a hose pipe to clear blockage and gunge in gulley.
If you can't find a way to get rods down drain may need jetting
Get the vent pipe situation sorted as a matter of urgency.
A A Vs are way too easy to misuse!

 

[justigator]

At least here in Thames Waterland, as soon as a drain joins someone else's, it's their responsibility to maintain, even if under private land. That applies to my and my next door neighbour's houses.

 

[cwhaley]

I've decided to just suck it all out.

I have a thought as to what a lot of the blockage may be. 1. The previous owners didn't put a leaf guard on the drain pipe. 2. When we had a rear chimney stack lowered, there was a lot of debris on the roof which I think has found its way into the drain pipe, and then the underground drainage.

I've got one of those Titan 1300W things. Cheap, but a lot of the reviews seem to be from navvies who have given them a bit of a battering. I'd rather do that than push it further down.

Severn Trent won't touch it for free (£115) as it's on private land.

 

[amfisted]

I had one of those Titan thingies and they really are very good, especially for the price. You can indeed batter Hell out of them and they just keep going, as long as you give the machine a good clean after use.

 

[cwhaley]

Just as an update, I bought the Titan vacuum and used it to vac out as far as the hose went. I must have shifted 30-40 litres.

It was a very unpleasant job, but I was impressed with the Titan. The water level dropped in the gulley but was still high so I felt a bit defeated. The next morning there was clear evidence of a very large overflow of human waste and tissue paper, which had since drained away.

Looking into the gulley, I was surprised to see the water level much lower and the water much clearer. I filled the kitchen sink and emptied it to test, and it all flowed away nicely. Everything smells clean again, so I scrubbed with Jeyes fluid and left to soak in.

Whatever it was must have been disturbed by all the agitation of the vacuuming.