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Summary of soakaway drains pipes set up







Summary of soakaway and drains pipes set up

The first thing that you will need to think about when undertaking any DIY plumbing and drainage are the regulations issued by your Local Authority. They can determine what you are allowed to build and require you to correct any errors in your soakaway or drainage setup.

You need to explain your work plan in detail to the authority if you wish to install a new sewage system or alter an existing one. This can apply to major soakaway works. The officials will then go through the plan to check if it is in accordance with the established rules. However you do not require authority approval for replacement of failed joints or cracked plumbing and drains pipes, similarly their rules may not cover soakaway minor redevelopment.

When rain falls on your house and property, it runs across as surface water and has to be drained properly, perhaps into a rainwater soakaway. An earlier method was to directly discharge this surface water into the sewage drains bypassing any soakaway, but modern homes use a surface water sewer or watercourse or soakaway to drain or absorb rainwater. Air escape from the drains is stopped when rainwater pipes are discharged into the foul water drains through gully traps in an older combined system. However with the new sewage systems, the foul and the surface water can be kept apart. To comply with modern planning regulations you should always make sure that the foul water and surface water sewage system do not connect. When in doubt about the how the modern sewage system works, consult the Building Control Department.

Before starting your drainage or soakaway work, finalise the routes the waste pipes would take to the foul drains or to your rainwater soakaway. The main things to consider when planning the route of a waste or soil pipe are to keep the route as straight and short as you can. Also, make sure none of the pipes are laid at too steep an angle. With the help of a surveyor’s site level, you will be able to determine the fall of a drain over a distance. In the absence of one of these, create a datum point and set levels with a hosepipe filled with water and compute the fall from the datum in this manner.

You will need to guarantee that you do not impact on the stability of the house whilst installing your drain ditch or extending any soakaway in the garden area. The foundation of the building should not be undermined by your digging if the drain pipe runs parallel to it.

While installing a new drainage system make sure that you do not dig too long before laying the pipe. The pipes should be laid quickly and the trench back filled after the system has been examined thoroughly and tested as required.

Depending on the depth and soil conditions, the ditch or soakaway walls may require support. It is no advisable to not take any risks. If you have any worries, you should support to the ditch to reduce any risk of collapsing side walls during the building phase. Keep the ditch as narrow as possible, but allow room to work in the trench. Ensure that the trench bottom is flat and free of stones, tree roots and soft spots. If the exiting material is not suitable then you may need to import a suitable material for the base of the ditch.

You should definitely not use hard materials such as bricks to support the pipe in the trench. Even if used for just a temporary support this can damage the pipe. The bedding should be properly compacted with hollows made to accommodate the joints in the pipes. You will need to provide a continuous and uniform support for the complete length of the pipe.

An important criteria for pipe layout and soakaway placement is that you should be able to access any point with a drain rod to clear blockages even to a rainwater soakaway which can fill up with debris over time. Therefore, a run of drains should be as straight as possible between two points. As a general rule, any change in direction of the pipework should be provided with an inspection chamber to allow rodding access.

Keeping these points in mind, you can carry out your own drainage and plumbing work smoothly and almost professionally.

Posted in Drains


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