5 manholes in a brand new house (garden & drive way)...

BartyBoy

Does it mean I will be accessing the manhole inside the conservatory? If so, I don't think it is what I have in my mind...

Davesnave

BartyBoy wrote: »

Does it mean I will be accessing the manhole inside the conservatory? If so, I don't think it is what I have in my mind...

Well, if you don't like that idea, if it's your own drain, you could possibly dig up the inspection chamber and reposition it outside.

However there are hundreds of hospitals, schools and other buildings you've been inside, with drains accessed from indoors. You just haven't noticed.

katsu

We have a number of these down our property so back and front garden. We are in a 50s property and whilst they are a bit ugly and more costly to drop in garden remodelling,we've had no real complaints about them.

We are over the storm drains for the area as best we can tell. They have overflowed and shed basically water and litter not poo.

phoebe1989seb

Davesnave wrote: »

Well, if you don't like that idea, if it's your own drain, you could possibly dig up the inspection chamber and reposition it outside.

However there are hundreds of hospitals, schools and other buildings you've been inside, with drains accessed from indoors. You just haven't noticed.

We had to do this at our last house when building our kitchen extension in 2012. It was our own drain - we had a septic tank that just served our property - so down to us. Fortunately we had a large plot (1/3 acre) with a massive terrace so the builders had plenty of space to relocate it.

Throughout the garden we had five/six in total, scattered about - one on the lawn (but in an unobtrusive spot on the side), the others all on paths or gravelled/paved areas. In the hard landscaped areas we used the lids that Davesnave mentioned so we were still able to fit paving slabs and the manholes were barely noticeable. We also gravelled over two, something we made a point of mentioning to our buyers when selling last year.

At a previous property we used the same kind of lid, then tiled the floor in a conservatory and never had any flooding/overflowing loo issues, although I admit this isn't an ideal situation and I wouldn't do it again.

Our current (1850s) house again has several, both on the terrace - but out of site of the seating area - and lower down the lawned part of the garden. We plan to put up a summer house on the lower lawn and will take the manholes into account when deciding where to position it as I don't want the hassle of moving them. In our case they are all in fairly unobtrusive locations with judiciously positioned planting disguising them

Only you can decide whether this is a deal breaker in your plans to extend the house OP - better to make that decision now before it's too late.......

RockOnZombies

I would suggest you be very careful as what you might have in your garden is a surface water attenutation tank which seems to have been glossed over by the sales guy. Also don't believe they get adopted cause it may not be, a lot of surface water or SuDS systems for new estates are private and the house owners will have to pay an annual charge for their maintenance. Have you checked to see if there are any access easements across your garden for maintenance?

Personally I'd run a mile from this but then I work in the industry.

arbrighton

I'm just trying to count up in my head how many there now are in our property.
1 In the garage, 2 behind it (all septic tank). 1 in lawn between garage and house (septic tank related).

One at edge of new paving at front

3 in the back. Some are surface water drainage which is overcomplicated due to historical situation and how close we are to a river and a road, but some are foul as well.

So that's 8. The new ones are black and round, the old ones are big metal jobs. They are what they are

ethank

I have a TW house. I have two in the back garden, one in the front garden and one at the side of the house.
Apparently it is better to have access outside the property.

flowrypot

I would check with your water company that you can build over them as some dont allow it now they are responsible , and want you to reroute them

BartyBoy

Just thought to give an update here.

I went to the development site this afternoon, I spoke to the sales guy, the site manager and his assistant all 3 at the same time regarding my concerns on these manholes. It turned out the one which is right in the middle of the garden is not shown/recorded on the actual drawing plan. It really took me by surprise to see a manhole missing on the actual plan.

Anyway all these guys now understood what I was talking about - a manhole that I didn't know its exist before. So now I had a proper discussion about the issue. I said to them that I was planning to have a conservatory at the back of the house, but due to the multi manholes in the back garden, I didn't think it was possible now. Then the sales guy posted a question asking how far this centre manhole was from the back of the property, the assistant went down to the plot to measure it himself. He got back and said the manhole sat 4.5 metres away from the property. So from that aspect, it seems my dream to have a conservatory has not quite vanished yet.

Then I asked about the manhole on the driveway. The site manager said this one was for rain water, and unfortunately it is already buried in the ground and sits right next to the property, so it seems impossible to have an extension by the house. *sign*

And finally, I asked the team whether any of these manholes connected to the neighbours. I was told the manhole sat at the bottom-ish of my plot was a conjunction manhole. One of the two properties on my right hand side connects to this manhole, then another pipe comes out from this manhole connecting to the property on my left hand side. Unfortunately the width of my plot is 8m, therefore a conjunction manhole has to put in my plot to form a connection between the properties on both sides.

In terms of the manhole which sits next to my property on the drive way collects rain and surface water. What problem will I be facing if I wanted to build an extension in where this manhole sits? Am I allowed to touch it at all?

Thank you all!

BlueIsTheColour

Have you asked about any possible covenants on the property? We've just bought a new build & there is one that explicitly states no conservatories/extensions etc. I can't remember now if it's time bound, but I not...

This might impact on any development plans you have or at least make you wait a while before being able to do it...