I have a soakaway under the lawn in the back garden which is fed by the waste from the utility room sink and washing machine and the rainwater down pipe. It was put in place five and a half years ago when we extended the house. Trouble is the soakaway is now full and a bit of the lawn is permanently sodden with not very nice water. I've also got access to the main drain quite close to where the waste from the utility room and downpipe go into the soakway. Photo here www.flickr.com/photos/bockingkellys/5462486686/
shows the two in close proximity, the pipe along the wall is the one from the utility room.
What can I do about the full soakaway and is there any way of changing where the waste from the utility room goes so it feeds into the main drain. Obviously I can't expose the main drain to the air, can I?
In case it's relevant I live in mid Essex and the soil's thick clay.
Any advice gratefully received.
Thanks
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Waste water into a soakaway? Not surprised its full, soapy water from the washing machine mixed with clay?
Install a new underground spur into the main drain.
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Pretty sure it is illegal to discharge waste water into a soak-away. Constitutes polluting a water course and you can be fined for it
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I'd hope it was frowned upon. If it was legal couldn't all of us with water meters (we're saving money with it anyway) do this? Not that I would.
In fact you pay a charge for rainwater with a water meter based on the property size I think. So these soakaways should be replaced with a connection to the drains (if they are there of course).
I do wonder why Soupytwist has this at all. It can't be to avoid charges due to a water meter because he'd pay regardless.
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I've ended up with this largely because on the plans for the extension (which we inherited with planning permission when we bought the house), the architect had made a right pigs ear of working out the drainage arrangements and the builders did what they thought best, for them if not us and I lacked the knowledge to question it.
I'll look into getting a spur put on to the main drain. There's a reasonable amount of space so the utility room waste could come straight down and into something that's added to the main drain. That just means a fair amount of digging and presumably, removing some of the existing pipe and replacing it with a new section, including the in from the utility room. As it's a drain we share with two neighbours that will be a day or two when they can't use their loo without planning.
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did the building regs man sign this off?
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Well we have bulding regs approval, whether he examined the drainage arrangements properly I cannot say.
I suspect that we ended up with this arrangement because the mains drainage at the back of the house is a bit complex. In the picture I linked to, the main drainage bit you see there inthe foreground has three pipes running into it - one from next door (and next door but one) and two from various bits of our house, so putting another channel into it at that location would presumably have been a bit complex, but I don't see any reason why another spur into the main drain wouldn't be possible a metre or so along.
Last edited by: Soupytwist on Mon 21 Feb 11 at 16:33
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>> Pretty sure it is illegal to discharge waste water into a soak-away. Constitutes polluting a
>> water course and you can be fined for it
Hmmm. Every septic tank has a soakaway attached - only the solid goes into the bottom of the tank, the liquid drains off.
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A sewage effluent soak away is not the same as a soak away used for surface water dispersal. The only function of a surface water soak away is to disperse the water into the ground, but a sewage effluent soak away has two functions.
The first is to soak the septic tank liquid away. The second function is to further treat the effluent to remove suspended solids, bacteria and viruses, nitrogen and phosphorous using natural aerobic bacteria which grow within the soak away. Only then can the waste be soaked away into the ground. This is to avoid groundwater contamination, as much of our drinking water is sourced from it.
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>> Install a new underground spur into the main drain.
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EXACTLY.
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Soakaways don't get full (as such) I suspect your one wasn't constructed properly,
If the main drain is so close - why was a soakaway used for the utility waste, and not the main drain I wonder.
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>> Soakaways don't get full (as such) I suspect your one wasn't constructed properly,
They do, but not water. This one is full of grease, soap, fluff, scale.
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>>They do, but not water<<
Ah! we had a septic tank soakaway like that a few years ago - *full* of fat which previous owner shoved down the sink
I tried everything on it, without success.
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It looks to me like the rain water pipe is discharging onto the surface.
My neighbour's land is slightly higher than mine and he's a couple of flat roofs whose rain water's directed into butts. He never empties the butts. Parts of my garden were often under water (I'm on London clay). Leylandii effectively cured it - about the only useful purpose the things can serve.
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If the Leylandii aren't up to it at some point, Rylands v Fletcher might be of interest:)
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That's because I moved it before taking the photo!
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Soupy,
Let us know if you want the Flickr link locked out -you've given access to a load of photos.
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Thanks PU - I'll ask for it to be locked out once the thread's run its course, if that's OK.
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Do what Zero & MD said with your "utility" waste. I am unsure what purpose a soakaway in "thick clay" serves. Perhaps it's not entirely impermeable. Perhaps the soakaway has insufficient capacity. Perhaps it wants digging out.
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Probably got ample capacity for a rainwater down pipe (especially as a fair amount of that gets syphonned off to a water butt), not sufficient to cope with the waste from a dishwasher and sink.
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Echo, Zero, MD and FT. Soakaways such as you describe should only be used for rainwater run off, no wonder it's now flooding out if you've been pumping washing machine waste into it. I think you will find that even once you've done the correct thing and put the wastes into the main drain you're still going to have problems with the soakaway and it will need digging out and replacing as I would imagine it's clogged to kingdom come.
When building my extension the building inspector directed that all my wastes should go into the main drain but I had to build a soakaway for the additional rainwater run off AND the existing rainwater run off which had previously gone into the main drain. This was something to do with removing as much water volume from the main drain as possible that didn't need to go through the sewage treatment works and thus reduce the costs of the water company and increase the time before they would need to, expensively, extend the treatment works.
I would also imagine that there is a considerable danger of pollution of the water table with your arrangement, something which increases the drinking water treatment costs by having to remove the nasty stuff from detergents, etc.
Even if your arrangement is not breaking any regs it's certainly not good practice.
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Drainage / soakaway issue - Zero
