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Doubts about replacing yard gully with soil stack
maxwell321
Posts: 5 Forumite
Hi all. My family owns a ground floor maisonette. Our upstairs neighbour (the freeholder) is installing a new soil stack at the side of the property, between our kitchen and bedroom windows, to service his new first floor shower room. It would join the sewage pipe that runs underneath the shared driveway that runs the length of the property. Our kitchen and bedroom face onto this driveway.
His builder has approached us about eliminating the yard gully under our kitchen windows where our sink, dishwasher, washing machine and two basins (one in the bedroom, another in a toilet) drain into. He says it will be easier for him to connect the new soil stack into the pipe underneath the gully, than dig up the drive to install a new manhole. He says he would re-run all of our existing waste pipes into the soil stack, and that we would not notice any difference.
It's an old clay gully, quite wide, set about a foot into the ground and needs to be cleaned out occasionally (food waste, leaves, etc.). I thought his suggestion was a good one – it would certainly save on maintaining the gully – but want to make sure about any pitfalls before agreeing to it.
Given we are on the ground floor, could sewage potentially back up into our sinks and appliances, if there is a blockage in the soil stack? (This is our biggest worry.)
Our dishwasher and washing machine do not have P traps, so assume these would need to be added? The bedroom washbasin is very old and has a lead waste pipe with S trap which I am not sure if conforms to current regulations?
I assume siphoning of our traps would be not be an issue, as the stack will have a durgo valve fitted?
Will noise from usage of the stack be amplified into the bedroom area if the basin is connected into it, as compared to over the yard gully?
Are there any other advantages to retaining the yard gully?
His builder has approached us about eliminating the yard gully under our kitchen windows where our sink, dishwasher, washing machine and two basins (one in the bedroom, another in a toilet) drain into. He says it will be easier for him to connect the new soil stack into the pipe underneath the gully, than dig up the drive to install a new manhole. He says he would re-run all of our existing waste pipes into the soil stack, and that we would not notice any difference.
It's an old clay gully, quite wide, set about a foot into the ground and needs to be cleaned out occasionally (food waste, leaves, etc.). I thought his suggestion was a good one – it would certainly save on maintaining the gully – but want to make sure about any pitfalls before agreeing to it.
Given we are on the ground floor, could sewage potentially back up into our sinks and appliances, if there is a blockage in the soil stack? (This is our biggest worry.)
Our dishwasher and washing machine do not have P traps, so assume these would need to be added? The bedroom washbasin is very old and has a lead waste pipe with S trap which I am not sure if conforms to current regulations?
I assume siphoning of our traps would be not be an issue, as the stack will have a durgo valve fitted?
Will noise from usage of the stack be amplified into the bedroom area if the basin is connected into it, as compared to over the yard gully?
Are there any other advantages to retaining the yard gully?
0
Comments
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I was going to say there would be no problem, but you have correctly identified several.0
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Oh dear, that’s not very reassuring. Would it be better to leave things as is then?0
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I think it would. (Whether you can stop them or not is debateable though.)0
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Yeah, that’s OK. It’s just that we don’t want to volunteer to a change that could have some unpleasant disadvantages down the line and not really any advantages. Would it be reasonable to say no?0
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I would. Whether it's reasonable depends on your point of view, doesn't it?
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