Drainage Nightmare!

[Losingsleepoverdrainage]

9 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

You are not alone in suffering unreasonable and threatening behaviour where soft and smelly stuff is concerned.

Here's my neighbour cutting off (by nailing the gate shut)  access to our Skeptic Tank when he heard we had gained Planning Permission.

 

 

I can't be sure, but I think I remember that I might have reversed the nailing process with the bucket on my digger.

Surprisingly easy to make mistakes like that I am told. 

 

From that day to this, we've not paid a penny towards pumping the tank . Saved £400.

That makes it about £10 per nail.

Ha! 

[Mr Punter]

Even if there is no mention in the title deeds, if the drainage has been in place for at least 20 years and you (or your predecessors) have not had to pay for use, you may have the right to use the pipe via prescriptive easement.

[Losingsleepoverdrainage]

11 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

Even if there is no mention in the title deeds, if the drainage has been in place for at least 20 years and you (or your predecessors) have not had to pay for use, you may have the right to use the pipe via prescriptive easement.

That’s also my understanding. Hopefully ‘Bucket of concrete’ will see sense if we tell him enough 🤞

[Losingsleepoverdrainage]

Today, we’ve spoken to a drainage expert who has told us that, contrary to what the binding rules state, we can actually produce up to 5000l of water to ground, not 2000l as we first thought. 

 

This chap works very closely with EA and British Water, and has not given us any reason to doubt anything else he’s advised, but I can’t seem to find anything regarding this in the rules. 
 

Any thoughts? 

[ToughButterCup]

23 minutes ago, Losingsleepoverdrainage said:

Today, we’ve spoken to a drainage expert who has told us ....

 

The drainage sector is the single most dysfunctional building sector of all. There is no formal qualfication for practice in this sector - except maybe that your nose has been cauterised at birth.

.

He works closely with [... x, y z, eh...]

 

Ask for his contacts - do a bit of Due Diligence. 

 

Trust your instinct. If I were in your situation, I'd have less hair than Kojak or Bruce Willis. You can't find anything in the GBRs..... 

 

Here's an extract from my blog about this sector. Have a smile on me.

=========================

Adapted from my blog

Let me take you with me on my first steps on the road to cynicism in the building sector.

For some reason (sewage smells?) many people appear to delay attention to the soft and smelly until it’s either too late or until they’ve backed themselves into the smallest room in the house; and then, trousers round their ankles, they allow someone to lock the door from the outside.  Evidence? Use the search terms refusal and percolation on our LPA website. ‘Refused pending percolation test results’ is all too common.

 

Imagine then my incredulity when, on the recommendation of a colleague, a company turns up to do a ‘PERK test (mate)’ for a drainage field on our land.   Just a bit of context…. we live in sight of what was a clay quarry, within cricket ball throwing distance in fact So, there might just be a bit of clay around 

 

“Yeah, that looks fine (mate) you’ll get a drainage field on here no bother” he says without so much as lifting a shovel.

“Tickety boo ” I say. “Gonna do the percolation test then?”

“Aye… I’ll get ‘t shovel from ‘t van”

“Where’s your machine then?” I ask. “

No need for one (mate)”

“I’ll get the tea on then” . Tea duly made…. yer man’s gone

 

A square foot of the turf has been gently disturbed in one spot, and carefully replaced.  An alarm bell sounds in the dim, dark recesses of my brain. And instantly switches off. Time for the pub.  Friday is International Party Night in our place.

 

============================

 

Good luck .....

[Kelvin]

It was reading your blog post on this that convinced me to get a proper percolation test and soakaway design  done as part of our due diligence before we bought the land. Obviously I could easily enough have dug my own hole and filled it up with water and timed it etc but I just felt more comfortable having it done professionally and getting a report at the end of it. 

[saveasteading]

59 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

There is no formal qualfication for practice in this sector -

 

Not drainage as precisely discussed here, but i think it comes under "Civil Engineering".

Fluid mechanics  and soil mechanics are covered.

 

(Not Structural Engineering as they have split off from the profession into their narrower field.)

 

There is an overlap into biochemistry, but that is buying a 'thing' these days.

Designing domestic drainage fields isn't a glamorous or well paying speciality,  hence so often it isn't designed but bodged.