Building over sewers/drainage.

victor2

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

It was a pain and a little expensive, but we did get the water authority's final approval letter after the work was done, which will go with the property deeds, and probably never be required ever again.

What sort of money is "expensive" ?

In the scheme of things, it wasn't that much. I found a local company who specialised in doing surveys for the water authority and did the two surveys for £150, providing me with the recording of their survey on DVD plus a written report each time, although they weren't expecting to be asked for the first report and kindly provided that at no extra cost. We did the first one for our own peace of mind, but then the water authority said they needed "before" and "after" reports. In addition to that was the water authority charge for the application, which was £169.50.
The time delay involved in getting the initial survey done and go-ahead from the water authority was probably the most frustrating.

victor2

Furts wrote: »

This cost will need to be weighed against the cost of diverting the drain around the proposed kitchen.

Building over the drain is bad practice and does raise an observation. Building Control may not allow this even if the Water Authority are not bothered. This is my experience, but others may have different experiences.

In my experience, Building Control didn't give a monkey's about us building over the sewer, except that they did inform the water authority we were doing so. They didn't care either that we built over our own "private" sewer feeding into the main one. For our own benefit, we had an airtight manhole fitted into the new extension floor and the tiles cut to fit it. You can see the extra grout lines, but it's mostly hidden under a unit anyway. At least if ever our own sewer became blocked, we could get access to it without having to dig through the extension floor. Never needed to access it in 30 years of owning the property, but you never know...

John_Pierpoint

Many thanks for the above, given the passage of time would £300 + £300 be a probable 2015 charge [and there is a bit of a shortage of resources now in the building industry - have you seen the price of bricks?!]

MallyGirl

Furts wrote: »

This cost will need to be weighed against the cost of diverting the drain around the proposed kitchen.

Building over the drain is bad practice and does raise an observation. Building Control may not allow this even if the Water Authority are not bothered. This is my experience, but others may have different experiences.

We had to move the drains when we added our extension/orangery - we were not allowed to build over them. It was a complete pain. And we had to leave inspection panels at each bend and along the longest stretch so we have 3 of them in our terrace patio.

victor2

MallyGirl wrote: »

We had to move the drains when we added our extension/orangery - we were not allowed to build over them. It was a complete pain. And we had to leave inspection panels at each bend and along the longest stretch so we have 3 of them in our terrace patio.

Guess it depends on the water authority and what their current feeling is...
We heard of one local house which the owner sold after twice being refused permission to build an extension over the nearby main sewer. The buyer knew this history and thought he'd apply again anyway. He was given permission, built the extension over the sewer and subsequently sold the house back to the original owner!
Bit extreme, but illustrates how the water authority works.