Connect RWP to sewer

[wolfgang]

Hi all,

I've bough an end of terrace in November and started to take up the floorboard in the front room to prepare for insulating underneath. In the process I discovered deep holes in the front outside corner of the soil underneath, revealing the footings. The soil seems to have washed out in several other places as well. While investigating I realized that the whole terrace ( 4 houses) is draining their rain through my (and only) RWP, which terminates just below the wooden decking in a king of soak away. 'Kind of' soak away, because it's running right down the corner of the house and that's where on the inside it's washed away soil.

All done before my ownership and not up to regs, etc, but first things first. I've arranged for builder to come down and connect the RWP to a mixed sewer, on my property , which is less than a meter away from the RWP. Do I need to notify the water company? I believe this a a sewer that was a private one that was made public when ownership was transferred to the water company.
I don't want to wait, as this is an urgent case that threatens to weaken the structure of my property, even if the situation has been like this for a number of years.

Any advice much appreciated.

 

[mrrusty]

What is a "mixed" sewer - is it already carrying rainwater? Also, the sewer on your property that only serves your house is yours. It only becomes the utility company's once it leaves your boundary or serves more than 1 property.

 

[wolfgang]

It's an end of terrace, and I believe it serves another property on the terrace. So if I read the drainage report correctly it has been "adopted". I'm paying for both "surface water" and "waste water" charges, and both foul and rainwater are connected to the same sewer. At the back of the property it's already connected this way.

 

[mrrusty]

If it's already mixed drainage, and you have a builder coming, then I would say just do it. You could go all formal, do the proper notifications and spend some money, but......

 

[wolfgang]

They way I see it is that every rainfall is causing damage, and now that I've "disturbed" the water channels that have formed under my floor - if a heavy downpour comes it'll create bigger problems.

Next I have to address the capacity issue with the neighbours, because a small pipe isn't enough to handle 4 roof's worth of rain. A quick online calculator suggest a required capacity of 1.62 L/S, which I don't think we have.