Service Lines

hummy

Hi.

Does anyone know where i can get information regarding the location of the services lines coming into my building, so things like the water pipe, gas electrics?

we are looking an extension amongst other things and the location of these service lines will help us plan the works.

I tried calling the local council planning department and they simply said they don't have this informationa and i should speak to the service line providers.

Any help greatly appreciated.

macman

Water pipe should be fairly obvious, normally a fairly direct route from the street stopcock to the entry point into your home. Electricity harder to guess, but go to the meter and see where the utility co's. main cable heads off to.

keystone

LoL - nine times out of ten the utilities don't know exactly where they are either and have to go looking for them to precisely locate them.

Mostly the builder will deal with them as and when he finds them so I wouldn't worry too much.

Cheers

hummy

the main one the builder is interersted in is the waste pipe for adding in the new toilets. obviously we have a waste piupe on the side of our building but to add the extra waste pipe he needs to dig up the ground and find where it leads too and connect the new toilet to it. Didn;'t want any unnecassry ground works.

keystone

hummy wrote: »

the main one the builder is interersted in is the waste pipe for adding in the new toilets. obviously we have a waste piupe on the side of our building but to add the extra waste pipe he needs to dig up the ground and find where it leads too and connect the new toilet to it. Didn;'t want any unnecassry ground works.

Is he thick then? The soil pipe goes into the ground. Theres a fair chance that it runs direct from there to a manhole. Then from there onto another manhole etc until it reaches the main sewer in the road. Other soil pipes (eg from a neighbour) will ONLY be connected into it at a manhole. Its not rocket science TBH.

Cheers

hummy

he's figuerd that out....we have a manhole in our driveway...and the waste pipe going into the ground is at the side of the house. All he was just saying was that if we had a map of the service lines for the property it would be better as it would mean no unnessary digging. The problem is he is not wanting to dig out the driveway as we had that done a few years back.

keith969

Some years ago there was a problem with the drains in our street, and a neighbour got a company in to investigate. In the report they produced was a detailed map of the drains and location of all manhole covers etc, it looked like they got this from Thames Water, so contact your water company.

ormus

some peeps have a rosy colored view of the utilities companies skills and systems.
in my experience they have no true record of their own lines, never mind anyone elses.

Basil1234

sounds like to me he knows full well it is and the drive will be coming up but he doesnt want to because he know he will have to put right and if not done right will cause problems down the road later. I would let him make the mess now giving it the winter to all settle down but the fact hes asking for service drawings sounds rather worrying on his skills. always used to be water down the loo/bath etc find manhole flowing thru hey presto usually straight lined pipe otherwise rodding eyes in ground etc its not rocket science speaking as ex plumber

keystone

hummy wrote: »

he's figuerd that out....

Oh goody. Thats a relief otherwise you should be looking for a new builder who knows what he is doing.

we have a manhole in our driveway...and the waste pipe going into the ground is at the side of the house. All he was just saying was that if we had a map of the service lines for the property it would be better as it would mean no unnessary digging. The problem is he is not wanting to dig out the driveway as we had that done a few years back.

Theres more to this than meets the eye in the relationship 'twixt you and your builder methinks.

Cheers

Kiran

You can get companies in who wil locate all services coming into your property. We use them all the time in construction. They use a mixture of methods from cable avoidance tools to ground penetrating radar. They can the produce a detailed drawing showing accurately where your services run. Prices aren't too bad, it cost £1k for a site approximately 150mx80m and a live carriageway leading up to the site so probably 1/3rd of that max to do a house and find the incoming services. It will be more accurate than the utility companies service drawings as these may be the intended locations not the asbuilt locations.

If you are only after the drainage positions it is possible to rent a CAT and a sonde which can be pushed up the drainage line and detected from above ground. This is completely possible to be done DIY with a little common sense or your builder could do it in about half an hour.

HTH