FTB - Surface water does not drain into a public sewer

booksurr

silvercar wrote: »

We had a repeatedly soggy garden in our previous property. The solution was to build a new soak away. Total cost was in the region of £250.

and I live on London Clay where a hole more than 18 inches deep (or 2 spade depths) will have permanent ground water at the bottom of it within 6 hours of digging it because that is the top of the water table on average

my neighbour (a civil engineer specialising in designing industrial buildings) had a car port built with a roof area half the size of his house itself. The downpipe discharges directly on to the surface on the basis the same amount of rain falls on the roof as fell on the ground before it was covered with a roof and simply discharging it in one relatively concentrated spot at the base of the downpipe will not alter how fast it soaks into the ground. No soakaway dug at all.

when our triple garage was built the soakaway for the roof was (is) no more than 2 feet deep with 6 inches of soil cover (hit the top of it when digging once) as any deeper than that is irrelevant round here as it would be the equivalent of digging a hole in the bottom of the ocean - already full of water so ain't soaking nowhere

Davesnave

I built a couple of soakaways last year and I still havent filled either completely to ground level, as I've been observing what they do.

In normal conditions, they work as intended and absorb run-off comfortably, but when there's an exceptional amount of rain, they fill to within 20cm of ground level. The water then gradually percolates away over a few days.

There is no more roof, just some works which mean the building inspector has to be satisfied. So, nothing fundamental's changed; it's always been like this, or worse. There's no mains drains and this water shouldn't go to the septic tank. It's not a wet or boggy garden.

We have plenty of land and a slope, so for the cost of a digger and some plastic land drain, we could send this water another 100m rather than the obligatory 5m, but all that would do is shoot it onto our neighbour's property, which lies between us and the stream. Alternatively, we could send it direct to the stream on our land. Either way, these wouldn't be great things to do, as much flash- flooding is due to rapid run-off and people being overly efficient with drainage.

In short, booksurr has it right. If the house flooded, the existence/non-existence of a soakaway would be academic.

keith969

The solicitor is just covering his backside with a completely unhelpful 'assumption'. Houses with down pipes that do not drain into a sewer or soak away are common, it depends on the type of surface, the slope and area etc. As to how the water drains away in heavy rain. some areas might flood even with a soakaway; mine has nothing and has never flooded as the ground is able to absorb the rain. In fact the only thing that floods is the road nearby due to a poor main sewer!

As mentioned the benefit is you can claim a rebate on your water bill.

moneyistooshorttomention

Watching with interest - as I've never yet been able to figure out where the surface water in my garden is supposed to drain off to (has feeling it's a neighbouring garden......:cool:).

Doozergirl

Just another person miffed that the solicitor is amming assumptions they are not qualified to make. I don't see why any solicitor should be told about soakways, as they suggest.

People don't flood their own houses by not having a soakaway anyway. If it were an issue, any homeowner would take measures, not just sit in water! It's a simple job - a matter of cheap plastic pipe and a shovel. The only cost is labour.

Rainwater flooding generally occurs because of accumulative effects. Very common is too much water being discharged to the sewers - which ironically, your house doesn't.

No one can assume that your rainwater run off is an issue to anyone. The solicitor's comments are way off mark. They should advise the application of common sense, not scaremonger!

System

Really bizarre, although I do love it when solicitors think they are experts in planning/building with absolutely nothing but their own ego to back them up...
Have they got any evidence of the drainage routes around the building? The only real way to find out is CCTV survey, but even if it did go to a gravel soakaway, is the solicitor going to insist on seeing percolation test results and checking the calculation was done to the correct bs?
Don't let this non issue worry you

D00gie72

Just to add to what others have said. Just because the rain water doesn't go into the local sewer doesn't mean there is any issue. My house is not connected to mains drainage at all. (we have a septic tank also). When we bought 2 years ago the previous owner also didn't know where or if there were any soakaways for the rain water. What you can do is look for any obvious signs of an issue (or pay a surveyor or drain survey to check for you) Look for dips in the lawn - soggy patches of ground or any signs of damp near the down pipes. If there are none of these chances are you will have no issues - but like others have said only further investigation will tell you more. It may be worth the cost of a drain survey just to put your mind at rest and tell you exactly what you are buying. No need to run away though in my opinion.

Max_Planck

The other thing to remember is that the water and drainage search may not be entirely accurate or reliable.

Our buyers solicitors raised exactly the same question with our solicitors as the search results also said that the surface water does not drain into a public sewer. When I checked the search results we had when buying our house 5 years ago the search said that surface water does drain into the public sewer.

Interestingly, in the search paperwork, there is the following guidance notes;

- In some cases, 'Sewerage Undertakers' records do not distinguish between foul and surface water connections to the public sewerage system.

- At the time of privatisation in 1989, Sewerage Undertakers were sold with poorly-kept records of sewerage infrastructure. The records did not always show which properties were connected for surface water drainage purposes. Accordingly, billing records have been used to provide an answer for this element of the drainage and water search.

To me, that translates as, this part of the search isn't worth the paper it's written on!

getmore4less

Even if you could get accurate records unless very recent records you have no idea what changes have been made that change run off.

60years is along time

Load of hard landscaping could turn a good draining plot into a nightmare.

PixarFan

Hey! Thank you so much for all your replies. Incredibly helpful and valuable advice!

I have a trusted friend who is knowledgeable in this field to take a visit with me tomorrow to investigate the issue further - I'll post on here what he finds thanks guys.