Blocked sewer

mattygg

Hi All,

Im not sure whether this is the correct board but it was the closest i could find.

Yesterday i had a dodgy smell in my kitchen and upon checking the drain outside i found that it was full of sewage. I called out a local firm who found that 5 houses had been effected by this blockage. Apparenly the people at number 2 (im at number 4, and sewer runs from 2 downwards) had been putting sanitary towels and toilet wipes down the toilet and this had caused my drain to get blocked. Anyway, once the man had finished cleaning the sewers he found that the people at number 12 had recently had a driveway built and a bit of cement had falled into the sewer and this was causing the flow of water to be diminished.

Anyway the bill came to £411 and i spoke to all the 5 house involved, along with number 12 regarding splitting the cost of the repairs. I received some money from one of the houses, number 12 denied any responsibilty and said the cement wasnt theres. The other 3 houses involved told me that they were council houses and if it had been their drain blocked the council would have fixed it. My question is, am i able to speak to the council and try and get some money from them as i have had to pay to get their drains cleared?

Sorry for the long post, any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Cardew

You obviously should try but I think the council will take the stance that you should have contacted them in the first place to have got it cleared.

They would have billed as appropriate to those responsible - probably not at all.


By the way £411 seems a huge charge.

deanos

Cardew wrote: »

By the way £411 seems a huge charge.

I bet they got the old CCTV camera out and did some jetting no doubt , they always try that one on dont they:mad:

emptypiggybank247

deanos wrote: »

I bet they got the old CCTV camera out and did some jetting no doubt , they always try that one on dont they:mad:

This is my first post so please forgive any improprioties, last week we had to have our sewerage drain unblocked as well, were only on a two house run and it was the same type of blockage, this being baby wipes from nextdoor but after contacting several specilist companys eg. dynorod, etc and getting prices from £35-£70 per half hour for rodding and £55-100 for jetting my partner turned round and said "why not try anglian water" who are our suppliers.
Well god bless her, after a short phone call and a three hour wait two engineers from anglian water turned up and sorted the problem within half an hour, and to cap it off i was told that because my home was built prior to the 1930s can't remember the exact year, anglian water had to "adopt the sewers" and as sucth there would be no charge.
:beer:
i know this is of little help to the origional poster but if anyone has this problem in the future its well worth checking with you water company first, just to see if you can save the cost of having someone else do it.

Hapless_2

We do ours ourselves, the council take 24hrs to come out and tend to take ages. We do it with our chimney rods and a drain adaptor, total cost £60.