We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum. This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are - or become - political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.

Obtaining drain plans

Is this such a thing? The gutter and garden drains run into a storm drain down the side of the house. 

There are manholes on the main road owned by Severn Trent. We don’t know where our effluent drains into. There are no inspection drains on our property unless the owners have built over it and we don’t know - there’s a single storey extension for a utility room but planning permission wasn’t applied for as it comes under permitted development. 

How do we go about finding out the drain routes?
«1

Comments

  • rob7475
    rob7475 Posts: 913 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    edited 15 September 2021 at 9:43AM
    Your water company will be able to supply them for a small fee.

    Do you own the house? A drainage search will have been carried out when it was bought.
  • Doozergirl
    Doozergirl Posts: 34,020 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    When you bought the house, you would have received a copy of the water searches.  It will show the local sewers that are mapped, but it won't show your personal ones and it won't show any that were initially private but adopted post 2011. 


    You can trace much of your route by lifting any manhole covers and observing where the inlets are running from, or running water from your house and seeing where they come out. 

    Failing that, you can commission a CCTV survey from any local drainage company.  
    Everything that is supposed to be in heaven is already here on earth.
  • Section62
    Section62 Posts: 8,653 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Third Anniversary Name Dropper

    Start with the water company, but if they aren't public sewers (or if they were private until 2011) then the water company is unlikely to have records.

    Ask your local council if you can inspect (/have a copy of) the building control plans for your property. (although do so with caution if the extension was recent and done without getting BC approval)

    If the house was built post-2000 there might be enough information on planning application drawings available for free download online.

    Until you know otherwise, work on the basis you had inspection chambers but they are now buried somewhere under the extension.
  • FreeBear
    FreeBear Posts: 17,229 Forumite
    Ninth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    d0nkeyk0ng said: Is this such a thing? The gutter and garden drains run into a storm drain down the side of the house.
    Are you sure it is a storm drain connected to the main sewer ?
    Depending on the age of the property, the down pipes could (should) go off to a soakaway located withing your boundary. If they do, make sure you are getting a discount on your water bill.
    Her courage will change the world.

    Treasure the moments that you have. Savour them for as long as you can for they will never come back again.
  • Could I hijack ever so quickly please?

    If one doesn’t have a drainage search from buying the house, where can they be obtained from? Is it the local authority?

    We need to see a similar thing and the manhole cover is likely under a concrete path….
  • Could I hijack ever so quickly please?

    If one doesn’t have a drainage search from buying the house, where can they be obtained from? Is it the local authority?

    We need to see a similar thing and the manhole cover is likely under a concrete path….
    It's the water company. In the example of the purchase of a property the solicitor would have gotten drainage search from the water company. If someone wanted a drainage search for any reason, they could get this direct from the water company, for a fee. 
  • Thank you 🙂
  • Doozergirl
    Doozergirl Posts: 34,020 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 16 September 2021 at 6:29AM
    They're not that accurate.   They're unlikely to help with the exact positioning of a manhole.   

    Even the water companies use dowsing rods to find the mains.  
    Everything that is supposed to be in heaven is already here on earth.
  • Grenage
    Grenage Posts: 3,108 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    They're not that accurate.   They're unlikely to help with the exact positioning of a manhole.   

    Even the water companies use dowsing rods to find the mains.  
    Wait; dowsing rods aren't superstitious nonsense!?
  • Section62
    Section62 Posts: 8,653 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Third Anniversary Name Dropper
    Grenage said:

    Wait; dowsing rods aren't superstitious nonsense!?
    Possibly. Possibly not. And the 'official' answer from a water company might not reflect the practice employed by engineers on site. ;)

    However, for finding manholes a metal detector is quite useful.  And so long as there is access somewhere, a sonde can be attached to rods or to a CCTV camera and picked up by a detector (a 'CAT') to trace the route of even non-metalic pipes.

    No sonde?  Or no access?  Sometimes a CAT+Genny will work with non-metalic pipes - apparently because radio waves travel better through air (in the near-empty pipe) than through soil, even where in theory the CAT+Genny should only work effectively if the pipe is conductive or has a conductive trace in it. The results on site sometimes aren't what the science tells us to expect.  Which brings me back to wandering around with bent bits of wire. ;)

    Also (in terms of superstitious nonsense) the plastic they were made from meant the CATs we used were always black. I don't know whether this was significant to the results obtained on site.  :|
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 348.2K Banking & Borrowing
  • 252.1K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 452.3K Spending & Discounts
  • 240.8K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 617K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 175.6K Life & Family
  • 254K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16K Discuss & Feedback
  • 15.1K Coronavirus Support Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.