Drains Q - soil pipe and gully

pboae

At the moment we have a drain pipe that comes down from the gutter, it has a hopper half way down, which the bath goes into and then the kitchen sink is tapped into it lower down. It's outlet is into a gully which goes straight to the main drain. The washing machine also goes straight to the same gully.

A little further along and just round a corner, there is a soil pipe that comes down and goes straight into the ground, it has it's own inspection chamber, and then connects up to the main inspection chamber about 3 ft away.

I'd like to have things moved around so that the pipe that the currently has a hopper and goes into the gully is made into a soil pipe that goes straight into the ground with no gully. The original soil pipe would be obsolete initally, but later on I'd like that making into a gully to take a washing machine drain and a drainpipe drain, but not till some other work has been done.

I want to do it because we have loads of problems with the soil pipe blocking because it has to go round a fairly tight corner to get to the drain. If it was just water it would probably be OK, but as it is it gets blocked and we have to flush water through the inspection chamber every couple of months to keep things moving. Which is a pretty grim job.

Is there any obvious reason why swapping the drains over wouldn't work? Also, would it be a problem that we wouldn't have a gully at all for a while, until the later work was done? I'm not sure if they are essential or not.

liitleblackcat

We don't have an outside gully since we had an extension built but my OH misses it for putting dirty water down (when cleaning things outside) rather than having to use a sink or putting it somewhere on the garden.

You can do almost anything with the orange plastic pipes underground and a grey or black soil pipe above ground - they are quite easy to join together and to joint pipes from the kitchen and bathroom into. Remember to make the run go downhill!

pboae

Thanks very much.

Ours are all the old sort (clay? pottery? I'm not sure) but when we get the work done I 'll have it redone with plastic, because the current ones are a mess.

We've got an outside loo for chucking dirty water down if we need it, and long term I want a gully back anyway (it helps with the drainage when the rains heavy too). But if I could get it done in 2 stages it will be much easier.

BobProperty

You need to be certain that you have a combined drain, by the sound of it. You can't run waste into a surface water (rainwater) drain. Have a read of this:
http://www.wickes.co.uk/content/ebiz/wickes/resources/images/gil/73.pdf
and
http://www.wickes.co.uk/content/ebiz/wickes/resources/images/gil/74.pdf

pboae

It's definitely a combined drain. The rainwater pipe already takes the bath water, and feeds into the same gully as the washing machine. That gully goes to the main inspection chamber, and the secondary inspection chamber (which the soil pipe discharges into) runs directly to the main inspection chamber.

When the soil stack gets really blocked I have to unblock the pipe that connects the two inspection chambers to get things moving, so I know it is all eventually discharging to the same drain.

adaze

You could have the gully and change the soil pipe, it just a matter of getting the right components connected up. I guess you realise it will be quite a lot of work digging the ground up?

pboae

Well TBH I hadn't but the more I look at it, the more I think we are going to have to get someone in to do it. I was hoping it would be a DIY job, but I'm starting to think it's a bit out of our league.