Broken Drain or Blockage ?

Leodogger

We have recently moved to a 2 bed bungalow and noticed at the first rainfall that the pipe at the end of our soakaway at the corner of the front of the property, sitting at the side of the drive was filling up with water and a pool was forming at the corner of the bungalow. My husband has today had the cover off and tried rodding it, even to the point of getting his arm down and fishing out soil and pebbles but the water will not run away. He said that there seems to be just soil after one foot of pipe all around and at the bottom of the pipe and he can't find where the pipe runs to, if anywhere. We don't want to have to dig up the pipe but I know that drain companies charge the earth to come out and look at it before even starting work.

My question is, where would this drainage point run out to or is it just supposed to be the end point for a soakaway that is supposed to drain into the soil? The water is collecting at the corner of the property and the damp is rising above the damp course and we have noticed the corner of the bedroom at that end is black from the damp leaking constantly up the wall.

Any suggestions before we have to call someone in ?

DaftyDuck

I don't have any helpful suggestions, but when I had a drain problem I did call out one of the big companies (it might have been dynorod), and I was surprised how thorough and careful they were - cost under £150 for what ended up being nearly two hours work clearing a very blocked drain... camera survey of drain included. I'd expected it to be a much higher bill and, considering what they were dealing with, I felt it was well worth while. They even hosed the patio down with disinfectant at the end, even though I hadn't seen any sign of muck. I may, of course, just been lucky with the bods that turned up!

You'd probably get it cheaper locally.

Leodogger

DaftyDuck wrote: »

I don't have any helpful suggestions, but when I had a drain problem I did call out one of the big companies (it might have been dynorod), and I was surprised how thorough and careful they were - cost under £150 for what ended up being nearly two hours work clearing a very blocked drain... camera survey of drain included. I'd expected it to be a much higher bill and, considering what they were dealing with, I felt it was well worth while. They even hosed the patio down with disinfectant at the end, even though I hadn't seen any sign of muck. I may, of course, just been lucky with the bods that turned up!

You'd probably get it cheaper locally.

Out of desperation I rang Severn Trent and they said that they don't think it would be connected to their sewer system but are sending someone out to check. I am hoping that as a professional he will know if the pipe is supposed to be connected to a mains sewer pipe and perhaps the pipe is broken. Although they are not responsible I am hoping to pick their brains. I just cannot believe that someone would put in a soakaway grill across the driveway with a down pipe at one side of some 9" with nothing beneath it ! If that is the case, it looks like an expensive job to put in a pipe to drain away the water. I did wonder why the front garden had been replaced with large pebbles (the couple were nearly 90 who lived here) and the driveway was tarmacced with this soakaway grid at the bottom before the start of the car port, it maybe that they had a problem as there is a slight slope, about 5 degrees sloping towards the carport and perhaps they had a problem with rainwater collecting so were advised to not block pave the front but use pebbles. Problem is the pebbles got everywhere and we had no extra parking space and we had them replaced with block paving ! Now we have a constant pool of water. I was going to ring the inlaws of the old lady who lived here, but the old lady is 95 and her son in law last time I spoke to him about something else, said she can't remember what she has had to eat 3 hours previous, let alone anything else

Leodogger

We have got to have a new soakway drain pipe put in as the existing drain appears to have been "bragged" according to Severn Trent when we had a flooding problem. There is a drainage point but nothing beneath about 6" of drainpipe. As this is causing damp on the corner of our property, we need a new pipe laying under our car port which is tarmacced and will require digging up.

Do we need a Drain Clearing Co to lay this pipe or a builder considering they will have to relay the tarmac to a good standard after the pipe has been laid?