Rainwater drain overflowing - cause/responsibility

usignuolo

We had some heavy rain this afternoon and when I went outside onto the patio at the back of the house, it was flooded up to about one inch. This was because the rainwater drain which takes the rain off the roof, seemed to be full up where the water enters the drain.

It stopped raining and gradually the water drained away but I am concerned that this has not happened before and may now happen again. There is no visible sign of a blockage and it is on the semi detached side of the house so the gutters are not shared with anyone else. Is there a soakaway or a discharge pipe underground? Don't know. These are Victorian houses and there are no records of where the drains lead at the back of the house. No one knows.

What should I do next? I do have insurance which should cover it but at present it has gone down so there is nothing to pump out.

CrazyRed

We get this problem sometimes at my MIL's house if there's been very heavy rain.

It happens, seemingly, because the underground drains cannot cope with the sheer volume of water passing through them at the time. As the water level within the drainpipes underground falls, so our drain then starts to empty.

No amount of cleaning, checking, jetting, etc., has ever resolved this fully, so we long ago accepted (it happened again this afternoon following heavy rains) that it's an issue with the public drainage system, not ours.

That said, it might be worth running a drain-rod through the drain from your roof, to see if there's some moss or leaves stuck in the gully part of the drain, causing slow drainage but would suggest that, if it has only happened after this afternoon's exceptional rains and has not happened before during 'normal' British rains, then it's most likely to be an issue with the underground drains, rather than yours.