So, digging the trenches for water pipe, a week late as the first contractor let us down, they were to do the road crossing and hubby doing the trench on our side, water board instructed us it has to be 750mm down, lots of old clay land drainage in there but none seem to line up and all are blocked and 1 of them is running constantly can’t stop it just keeps filling up the trench, there was nothing when the foundation was excavated further back the site and it seems unlikely that it’s just run off since we’ve had 7 weeks of dry weather barring a couple of days of rain, vaguely remember the son of a previous owner of the land mentioning a spring and not really in a position now to do anymore digging as there are piles of soil everywhere as it is and the kit due next week, will the water board be happy about the pipe running over the top of this?

Do they need to see the empty trench?  Put your pipe in, fill most of the trench and leave just the ends exposed?

Perhaps put some gravel around the water pipe so the water from the spring follows it off site.

Dig a hole in the trench deep enough to put a builders bucket in. Bale the water out and take a photo of the trench with the pipe sitting in nice clean gravel. Fill the trench back in and leave both ends accessible for them to do their work. 

If they ask why you backfilled it tell them it was collapsing in so was a H&S risk. Doubt they will really ask but you will still have the photo just incase.

Does the trench go right up to you house?  Is the water level anywhere near the underside of your floor?  If there is some sort of spring it may be good to intercept it higher up and divert it outside your house footprint, assuming you are on sloped ground.  I can't see why the water co would care unless there is nearby contamination in which case you should use barrier pipe.

 

I would be tempted to line the trench and pipe with building sand as gravel may have a french drain effect.

Is there perhaps a burst / leaky pipe somewhere?

The bottom of our service trench was around a foot or so below the water table, so that trench filled with water.  It would fill up overnight, so we'd just pump it out the next morning.  I think we had the pump running in a hole in the bottom of the trench when the DNO jointing team came out to make the new mains supply connections.  I know for sure that their pot joint is under water, as the yellow marking tape was floating along the trench the next day.  The intermediate earth strap and rod they put in next to the new pot joint was certainly getting a good low impedance, as it was constantly submerged in water.

Thanks all, think we’ll sand and gravel it and get pipe in and photographed then filled in for now, once the site is cleared up we’ll catch it and divert to the burn at the back , do think it’s a spring as the water comes from a different direction and theres no one connected above us and I’m sure we heard there was a spring, thought it would have dried up by now in this weather, long time ago we lived in a cottage and the water was fed from a spring and during the summer we ended up with no water! Happy days!?