Shower drainage ..

[t0nyst4rk]

Hello All,

I've found a few posts and threads already addressing this issue on the site - however they are mostly from many years ago and I don't want to proceed with out-dated information .. !

My property was built around the 60s/70s and on the back wall there is a two pipe system; a soil stack and a bunch of individual pipes (some feeding into a hopper) that all feed into a drain beneath the kitchen window.. this drain is collecting both rainwater and foul water from multiple basins / sinks / baths etc.

On the front side of the house the guttering all drains into two down-pipes - the feet of which are concreted in place.

My plan was to add an additional shower on the front side of the property and instead of chasing the drainage all the way to the backside of the house I wanted to join the shower drain to the rain water down pipe .. (conveniently located very close to the shower site..)

From a quick nosey at the neighbours set-ups - their rear of house is basically the same, an amalgamation of many pipes from foul water sources feeding into shared hoppers with guttering .. does this mean that our housing is just old and this was the done thing at the time?

Can I proceed as planned or do I have to fit more modern regulations? ..

My main worry is that although the back side of the house is blatantly mixing foul water and rain water - the front of house is not, and if I install the shower as per my description then it will be..


Many thanks for any advice!

 

[Justin Passing]

The gutterage at the front of the house may well go to a soak-away or the road drain.

Lift the drain inspection/manhole cover at the back, when it's not raining(!). As the front drains are sealed, get some water onto the front roof only. I doubt you'll see it running through the drain at the back. And in that case, if you're in a straight run of houses it's unlikely there's a foul drain at the front .
You can get/view a drain map at your council for a fee.

 

[John D v2.0]

Just because the back drain is combined doesn't mean the front is.
Our house has combined at the back but the front is surface water only. Two downpipes go into the surface and one into the foul.
In our area the foul drain emerges at the front between every second pair of houses, so if you're lucky you might have access to both at the front, given permission from the water company.