within 3m of a public sewer

ds1980

Can anyone clarify what that actually means?


Also are the drains on my property a public drain?


The plans I have when I bought the house clearly indicate there are no public drains on my property but my soil pipe drain and rainwater channel run parallel to the back of the house I think.


If they are then Thames would like a nice £350 to give me permission to build which I don't really want to pay. I will phone Thames in the morning but in the meantime........

andrewf75

I recently had this same issue.

A public sewer is now any drain serving another property as well as your own. They aren't on plans.

Does this soil pipe also serve next door? If so you need to pay, if not you don't.

Its annoying but the consequences of not doing it by the book could be a lot more than 350 quid so best to pay up.

ds1980

just spoke to thames and got the same gist.

I have to do some tests by the look of it and ask neighbours to poor stuff down drains to see what the crack is. Thing is it seems ridiculous as i could just say yes done tests and it is my drain only but I'm not about to cause myself hassle over £350.

Work to do but like you say i dont want the hassle down the line

ta

Captaincodpiece

Is this for the extension you've already started work on?

jbainbridge

Just do the tests ... there's a good chance the're not shared.

As has been said £350 could be the least of your worries if you get it wrong.

It will also be a problem when you come to sell.

ds1980

Found the manhole. Found the flow direction. Haven't asked upstream yet but have left some things in the drain to flush away and been a few hours now and nothings moved. Pretty sure it's not shared now but will keep checking.

The only thing that I'm confused with is there is a large pipe as it were in the manhole but when I tested the drains it flowed in from different pipes rather than down the large flow pipe. Haven't managed to find what flows down that yet?!?

Ill try and post a pic soon.

ds1980

mine is house with large extension (not built yet) the little blue dots are the soil pipes. we are the only two houses with soil pipes to the rear in the whole street as far as i know and it's quite a long street. The drain image is viewed from above but from the back of the house so its kind of upside down based on the drawings. Im assuming that i go from mine to next door and then to the public sewer and next door go the other way as it were? Mine goes into next doors garden then out to the front i think where there are two man holes and it looks like the same next door so pretty sure its not public and i might be start of the run? Just need to send some better images and details to thames to confirm.

Captaincodpiece

ds1980 wrote: »

mine is house with large extension (not built yet) the little blue dots are the soil pipes. we are the only two houses with soil pipes to the rear in the whole street as far as i know and it's quite a long street. The drain image is viewed from above but from the back of the house so its kind of upside down based on the drawings. Im assuming that i go from mine to next door and then to the public sewer and next door go the other way as it were? Mine goes into next doors garden then out to the front i think where there are two man holes and it looks like the same next door so pretty sure its not public and i might be start of the run? Just need to send some better images and details to thames to confirm.

Nice description but can we see the picture?

ds1980

i can see it on my comp?

Captaincodpiece

Ain't you got a proper drawing or are you building the extension from that?

If you do need permission to build over it should have been obtained before work started.

ds1980

Not quite but my drawings for the extension are about the same quality as that tbh my builder always laughs. How hard can it be. Its just 3 walls and a roof. I haven't started building yet hence why I'm having to do the drain survey.