Hi, I have a surface water drainage dispute with my neighbour, and would love your honest thoughts and views on it. I hope this is the best section to post in?
I live in a 3 bed semidetached house
The rain water off both the rear roofs of the properties drained through a shared single down pipe, approcemently 500mm inside the boundary on my side terminating 100mm or so above a hopper. We also had a water butt connected to this down pipe (which ran dry three times this summer, as I use it a lot).
Also our patio about 30 square metres, crazy paving laid on exciting slab drained into this hopper. The crazy paving stops 50mm short of the house wall providing a drainage channel into the hopper. This may not have been the planned intention of the surface water drain, but the patio certainly has been laid with a fall to make use of it (before we moved into the property).
I have lived here over 3 years and not had any problems with the drains.
In June my neighbour started construction on a single story rear extension.
Around mid-October when washing my patio, I noticed a build-up of water and thought the hopper cover must be blocked. Upon inspection the cover wasn’t blocked. After doing some digging and lifting some slabs to gain proper access to the hopper cover to allow me enough room and leverage to remove it, I noticed at this point that the u-bend was set at a near 45 degree angle towards the boundary fence of my attached neighbour, about 500mm away. I used a wet vacuum to remove the water and sludge from the u-bend, only to find the u-bend back filling. I also tried to jet wash the pipe with a pressure washer attachment, but could not get the hose more than 600mm in before feeling something solid stopping it. Then I found when directing a hose pipe into the hopper, after a short while I could see the void between my patio slab and my neighbour’s extension foundations filling with water!
When I spoke with my neighbour to say we had a problem with our drainage, he said that ‘yes they knew about it’, he said it’s been like that for at least four months if not longer, and he thought he had said about it already. The fact I had spent the best part of a day trying to find out why the water off my patio wouldn’t drain would indicate that I didn’t know!
Apparently when the foundations were dug for the next doors extension, they found a pipe, coming from my hopper to the soak away it was connected to. (The soak away and majority of the pipe run were on their property under the site of the new extension). At the time the builders and my neighbour decided between them it would be fine to cut into the shared downpipe on my side and divert the flow across onto the roof of their new extension at a later date. They had to make the soakaway they had dug for the new extension larger to cope with this, under building control instructions
This solution means I’m unable to have a water butt & what about my patio surface water where does that go?
I don’t think I should have to lose amenities due to their extension, certainly not without prior consultation and more importantly my agreement.
I called the Building control person who came to visit me. They said that diverting the down pipe would meet regs, but agreed that my drainage should be reinstated and that they would not sign off the extension as complete until it was done. But my neighbour was surprised at this as he says it’s signed off already, and BC when doing a site visit for their garden building (different building) had told the builders all they had to do was divert the existing downpipe onto the extensions roof! (I have now emailed the BC for confirmation of their views)
Having discussed this with my neighbour the only workable solution I can think off is to connect my hopper with his new soak away, which would mean digging a trench off around 8M in my patio with an inspection chamber, for rodding access as the pipe will need a bend in it.
I think he should pay for all the work, he thinks I should pay for the work on my side of the boundary, stating that he could/should have asked me to pay half the cost of the new soakaway as he says the old one was blocked and needed replacing, I don’t think the condition has anything to do with it, they had no choice but to move it, as it was situated under the site of their extension.
Could the builders not have run a new pipe through the footings of the extension to the site of the new soak away when they first found this problem? Even if they had to dig to replace my hopper and clay pipe.
Really sorry this is such a long post, thanks for reading. Please give your thoughts.
Is all this reasonable or not? What would you do?
Who should pay? What happens next?
I live in a 3 bed semidetached house
The rain water off both the rear roofs of the properties drained through a shared single down pipe, approcemently 500mm inside the boundary on my side terminating 100mm or so above a hopper. We also had a water butt connected to this down pipe (which ran dry three times this summer, as I use it a lot).
Also our patio about 30 square metres, crazy paving laid on exciting slab drained into this hopper. The crazy paving stops 50mm short of the house wall providing a drainage channel into the hopper. This may not have been the planned intention of the surface water drain, but the patio certainly has been laid with a fall to make use of it (before we moved into the property).
I have lived here over 3 years and not had any problems with the drains.
In June my neighbour started construction on a single story rear extension.
Around mid-October when washing my patio, I noticed a build-up of water and thought the hopper cover must be blocked. Upon inspection the cover wasn’t blocked. After doing some digging and lifting some slabs to gain proper access to the hopper cover to allow me enough room and leverage to remove it, I noticed at this point that the u-bend was set at a near 45 degree angle towards the boundary fence of my attached neighbour, about 500mm away. I used a wet vacuum to remove the water and sludge from the u-bend, only to find the u-bend back filling. I also tried to jet wash the pipe with a pressure washer attachment, but could not get the hose more than 600mm in before feeling something solid stopping it. Then I found when directing a hose pipe into the hopper, after a short while I could see the void between my patio slab and my neighbour’s extension foundations filling with water!
When I spoke with my neighbour to say we had a problem with our drainage, he said that ‘yes they knew about it’, he said it’s been like that for at least four months if not longer, and he thought he had said about it already. The fact I had spent the best part of a day trying to find out why the water off my patio wouldn’t drain would indicate that I didn’t know!
Apparently when the foundations were dug for the next doors extension, they found a pipe, coming from my hopper to the soak away it was connected to. (The soak away and majority of the pipe run were on their property under the site of the new extension). At the time the builders and my neighbour decided between them it would be fine to cut into the shared downpipe on my side and divert the flow across onto the roof of their new extension at a later date. They had to make the soakaway they had dug for the new extension larger to cope with this, under building control instructions
This solution means I’m unable to have a water butt & what about my patio surface water where does that go?
I don’t think I should have to lose amenities due to their extension, certainly not without prior consultation and more importantly my agreement.
I called the Building control person who came to visit me. They said that diverting the down pipe would meet regs, but agreed that my drainage should be reinstated and that they would not sign off the extension as complete until it was done. But my neighbour was surprised at this as he says it’s signed off already, and BC when doing a site visit for their garden building (different building) had told the builders all they had to do was divert the existing downpipe onto the extensions roof! (I have now emailed the BC for confirmation of their views)
Having discussed this with my neighbour the only workable solution I can think off is to connect my hopper with his new soak away, which would mean digging a trench off around 8M in my patio with an inspection chamber, for rodding access as the pipe will need a bend in it.
I think he should pay for all the work, he thinks I should pay for the work on my side of the boundary, stating that he could/should have asked me to pay half the cost of the new soakaway as he says the old one was blocked and needed replacing, I don’t think the condition has anything to do with it, they had no choice but to move it, as it was situated under the site of their extension.
Could the builders not have run a new pipe through the footings of the extension to the site of the new soak away when they first found this problem? Even if they had to dig to replace my hopper and clay pipe.
Really sorry this is such a long post, thanks for reading. Please give your thoughts.
Is all this reasonable or not? What would you do?
Who should pay? What happens next?
