Human Waste problem

Greebs

Hi all,

I'm after a little advice with my council house.

Back story:

Two nights ago I went for a bath, once I was finished I pulled the plug, went downstairs to watch TV and noticed the carpet at the bottom of the stairs was beginning to become soaked. I lifted the carpet to find water gushing out from underneath our electric box through a hole in the concrete where the box meets the floor (Our down pipe is internal and leads down from the toilet room).

I phoned the councils out of hours emergency number and was told somebody would either be out that night or the next day (there was no mention of an electrician, even after me voicing my concern about having water coming from the same location as my electric wires and having a 5 year old in the house) and i also mentioned that this pipe also took the toilet waste away.

Nobody turned up that evening and I rang them back at about 2 pm the next day to which I was told that it hadn't been sent through and that the lady on the phone would make sure somebody turned up asap. Somebody turned up at 3 pm and was unable to do anything and to cut a long story short it took a further 4 repair men to turn up throughout the rest of the evening to make any progress. The fifth person was a drainage company who sent a camera down and found a break a metre down in the foundations of my council house and a break just outside the boundaries.

Now I am left waiting to hear anything and was told by the drainage guy that he would file his report to the council either today or tomorrow and then it would be left up to them to make a decision about what to do.

I am wondering where I stand in this moment in time with regards to having a young child and human waste leaking into my house?

Anybody had a similar situation? all advice is much appreciated and I hope I made some sense above!

Cheers

Dan

anselld

Not sure how a break a meter below foundation and one beyond boundary can cause waste to leak into the house.

However, if waste is still pouring out then you should simply not use he facilities. Ask to use the neighbour's perhaps?

makeyourdaddyproud

You are in a much better position than a homeowner; your landlord (council) has a duty to put right the leak you have and urgently since there is a risk of e-coli / clostridium / difficile etc that would present a clear health risk.


Though I would say be patient as a foundation leak is much more complicated to repair than a street level one. The only repair I could think of without turning your life upside down would be to sleeve the pipe, but if the downpipe 'snakes' , or if there is a u-bend then be prepared for a significant upheaval and time taken for a proper repair.

Greebs

I'm glad people could understand my back story haha!

makeyourdaddyproud wrote: »

You are in a much better position than a homeowner; your landlord (council) has a duty to put right the leak you have and urgently since there is a risk of e-coli / clostridium / difficile etc that would present a clear health risk.


Though I would say be patient as a foundation leak is much more complicated to repair than a street level one. The only repair I could think of without turning your life upside down would be to sleeve the pipe, but if the downpipe 'snakes' , or if there is a u-bend then be prepared for a significant upheaval and time taken for a proper repair.

I'm not at all sure how the pipes are designed but the drainage guy showed me the problem area a metre down on his camera and asked me to run the sink tap while looking. As soon as I ran the tap you could see it build it completely and come rushing back up.

I'm wondering more whether they have a certain time frame to do the repairs in as when I asked the drainage guy he just kind of shrugged it off as if to say "well it's the council" but not in so many words if that makes sense?

I spoke to the drainage guy who told me the job would entail pulling up the concrete floor internally, right at the bottom of the stairs and pulling the kitchen sink and units out ( Not sure about the electric meter which is directly above the problem area also) which would surely leave me with no water for a certain length of time (damn these houses with internal guttering!!)

Greebs

anselld wrote: »

Not sure how a break a meter below foundation and one beyond boundary can cause waste to leak into the house.

However, if waste is still pouring out then you should simply not use he facilities. Ask to use the neighbour's perhaps?

The pipe that would usually be external is actually internal running down from the attic next to the toilet and down into the cavity of the wall separating the kitchen and hallway.

anselld

Greebs wrote: »

The pipe that would usually be external is actually internal running down from the attic next to the toilet and down into the cavity of the wall separating the kitchen and hallway.

Yes I understand that, but you said the first break was 1m below foundation level. How does the water get back up from there?

Greebs

anselld wrote: »

Yes I understand that, but you said the first break was 1m below foundation level. How does the water get back up from there?

Ah sorry I misunderstood, I'm no plumber and the drainage guy didn't explain to me why it was happening but to me surely it would disperse into the ground rather than back up the pipe?

AdrianC

When you drain the bath, there's a LOT more water heading down that pipe than when you flush the loo. So you get a lot more escape, it backs up - because there's still a good head of water from the remaining contents of the bathtub. That's why you had a dramatic leak then. But just flushing the loo? Nope. There's very little water goes down. It won't back up. If it did, you'd have noticed it earlier, almost certainly.

As for the electrics - I presume your fusebox has an RCD? The slightest bit of moisture anywhere near anything sparky will cause it all to trip off, not fry you. Panic not. It's an inconvenience, not a fatality waiting to happen.