Waste water leak

Ransom_Dry_Elk

Not sure where else to ask this but my driveway  is at the end of a neighbours garden with a bit of a height difference. There's an old concrete wall along the edge with a couple of drainage holes. One of them has had a steady trickle of water coming out of it for about 2 weeks now. It's giving off a slightly sulphurous smell. At first I thought it was just from the rain we'd had recently but it's continuous - when United Utilities shut off the water in the area to do some work recently it made no difference-it kept flowing. It's also close to a man hole cover on my drive and is depositing some kind of white residue.

Picture here https://imgur.com/NwTk9oQ

I'm a bit worried that there's some issue under my neighbours garden-who do I ask to look at it?

grumbler

I think you have to start with the neighbours.

Ransom_Dry_Elk

I have home and contents insurance-would it be worth asking them? Is this something they'd be able to help with?

Bigphil1474

As above, speak to neighbours first - they might know all about it. Failing that, have you tried the water board - they will normally send someone out to test it - if it has chlorine in, then it's probably from a mains leak. It could be leaking and picking up the smell and content mid journey. If it doesn't have chlorine in, it's probably from either a waste pipe or groundwater. If it was from 'the' waste pipe where all the smelly stuff goes, then you'd know about it, so let's assume not. Usually, the white residue is salt deposit, but not always.

Could be some sort of buried drainage in the neighbours to take water away from the house. Has there been any housing developments in the last year or two? We had a dry cellar for the first 20 years we lived in this house, then we had nearly a foot of water in there - only explanation was a change to the water table level as there's no leaks and no obvious source, but quite a lot of new houses built within a mile or two of our house.

Nobbie1967

It could just be that the concrete wall is restricting the natural drainage of your neighbour’s garden, so the water pools behind it and goes stagnant giving the sulphurous smell. The drainage holes could have got increasingly blocked over time so only slowly release the built up water. We’ve had a very wet March. Maybe wait and see if it abates after a long dry spell in summer?

Ransom_Dry_Elk

Got United Utilities out and they confirmed it was due to a blockage in a shared drain. They cleared it there and then at no cost-wasn't sure what the situation would be as it was on my property.