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Blocked sewer


Mighty Ruler
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I own a semi detached house that I rent out. The yard keeps getting flooded with sewerage from the manhole, I’ve had to rod it 3 times in under 2 years now. I don’t think the problem is being caused by my tenants, I think it’s the students in the HMO next door. Their drain joins on to mine about 10 feet underground, is there anything I can do other than keep clearing it when it gets blocked?

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You are responsible for the drain up to and including the last manhole on your property

the pipe  from this is responsibility of United Utilities or whoever you local Water people are.

 

HOWEVER  I believe that a few years ago any 'shared' drains were taken away from the house owners responsibility and  maintained by United Utilities 

it may be worth checking with your 'supplier'

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2 hours ago, Lloyd90 said:

What are they doing that keeps blocking it?

Speak to their landlord and tell them to sort it out or you'll send them the bill. It's surely an environmental health hazard. 

I don’t know who the landlord is, neither do the students. When we wanted him to cut his hedges we went through the letting agents but it wasn’t very successful.

Thanks for the replies, it looks like Severn Trent or Environmental Health are my best bet.

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45 minutes ago, Mighty Ruler said:

I don’t know who the landlord is, neither do the students. When we wanted him to cut his hedges we went through the letting agents but it wasn’t very successful.

Thanks for the replies, it looks like Severn Trent or Environmental Health are my best bet.

land register will have the owners details 

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5 hours ago, Mighty Ruler said:

I own a semi detached house that I rent out. The yard keeps getting flooded with sewerage from the manhole, I’ve had to rod it 3 times in under 2 years now. I don’t think the problem is being caused by my tenants, I think it’s the students in the HMO next door. Their drain joins on to mine about 10 feet underground, is there anything I can do other than keep clearing it when it gets blocked?

I can guarantee the problem will be with the dimwit students flushing wet wipes down the bog, we had a nightmare with our next door  doing it, they got the message when I posted the wet wipes back through their letter box.

Edited by blackbird
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9 hours ago, Mighty Ruler said:

I don’t know who the landlord is, neither do the students.

  They just need to ask.  It is a legal requirement that a tenant knows their landlord.

Shared drains are owned by the Utilities, but if they come out and the blockage is due to misuse, I think they can bill you,

 

RS

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I think UU is your next port of call. A shared manhole at my parents former home was backing up so had a word with new neighbours and asked if they knew what had been going down their toilet etc. She denied anything untoward and tried to suggest next door ( my mothers ) may be to blame. I pointed out that the house had been empty for a couple of weeks as my mother had died.

Anyhow, I did notice the woman had a baby so suspected wet wipes etc. Any attempt I did to clear by rodding didn’t do any good so I called UU.

They discovered not only wet wipes but disposable nappies! They had a stern word with the lady concerned and it didn’t happen again. 
Give UU a call. 

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12 hours ago, Mighty Ruler said:

I own a semi detached house that I rent out. The yard keeps getting flooded with sewerage from the manhole, I’ve had to rod it 3 times in under 2 years now. I don’t think the problem is being caused by my tenants, I think it’s the students in the HMO next door. Their drain joins on to mine about 10 feet underground, is there anything I can do other than keep clearing it when it gets blocked?

Firstly you need to be sure that the drains are definitely shared drains, I understand in your comments above that the drains join on your property but what isn’t clear is are  you upstream or downstream of the joining connection.

If next doors drainage flows through your plot and then onto the main sewer then you have a shared drain situation. But if your drainage flows downhill through your neighbours plot and you have no other property adjacent yours flowing through your drains then you have a private drain situation and the responsibility is yours.

If you have a private drain, I suggest you clean it first and then employ a drainage company to CCTV your drains to decide exactly what is going on, it could be just a simple object partly blocking the flow that needs removing or even a collapsed drain. The dreaded wet wipes do crop up from time to time, but it is generally more than a couple of wet wipes that cause a drain to block. As Figgy commented they snag on anything, because they don’t tear like toilet paper, so you then need to find out what they are snagging?

Good Luck
 

Ps if you do decide on cctv then please shop around as the price like most things can vary greatly. 

 

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27 minutes ago, steve1066 said:

Firstly you need to be sure that the drains are definitely shared drains, I understand in your comments above that the drains join on your property but what isn’t clear is are  you upstream or downstream of the joining connection.

If next doors drainage flows through your plot and then onto the main sewer then you have a shared drain situation. But if your drainage flows downhill through your neighbours plot and you have no other property adjacent yours flowing through your drains then you have a private drain situation and the responsibility is yours.

If you have a private drain, I suggest you clean it first and then employ a drainage company to CCTV your drains to decide exactly what is going on, it could be just a simple object partly blocking the flow that needs removing or even a collapsed drain. The dreaded wet wipes do crop up from time to time, but it is generally more than a couple of wet wipes that cause a drain to block. As Figgy commented they snag on anything, because they don’t tear like toilet paper, so you then need to find out what they are snagging?

Good Luck
 

Ps if you do decide on cctv then please shop around as the price like most things can vary greatly. 

 

I agree with the above. I had a similar situation with drains blocking in a semi; to cut a very long (years) story short, during one CCTV survey a rat appeared and eventually we worked out that they were burrowing into the neighbours' house via a disused connection which was left when they built an extension. We had to get the drain lined to cap it off, and then it was all sorted, but it was unfortunately years of stress and quite a bit of cost too. 

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32 minutes ago, steve1066 said:

Firstly you need to be sure that the drains are definitely shared drains, I understand in your comments above that the drains join on your property but what isn’t clear is are  you upstream or downstream of the joining connection.

If next doors drainage flows through your plot and then onto the main sewer then you have a shared drain situation. But if your drainage flows downhill through your neighbours plot and you have no other property adjacent yours flowing through your drains then you have a private drain situation and the responsibility is yours.

If you have a private drain, I suggest you clean it first and then employ a drainage company to CCTV your drains to decide exactly what is going on, it could be just a simple object partly blocking the flow that needs removing or even a collapsed drain. The dreaded wet wipes do crop up from time to time, but it is generally more than a couple of wet wipes that cause a drain to block. As Figgy commented they snag on anything, because they don’t tear like toilet paper, so you then need to find out what they are snagging?

Good Luck
 

Ps if you do decide on cctv then please shop around as the price like most things can vary greatly. 

 

The drain comes from under our house, flowing down from next door. My drain joins on somewhere under the garden path and the combined drains carry on to a deep manhole next to the road. I think our garden is lower than next door so if there’s a blockage it comes up our side.

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Weve been on septic tanks for as long as I can remember, never had any problems really until make up wipes became a thing. Mother, sister, girlfriends theyd get through a few as well as other 'ladies things' plus mother was a ****** for pouring fat down the sink. One day the upstairs toilet was flushed and backed up the downstairs one. Several hours of sweating and wrestling later a 2ft long plug of fat, tampons and face wipes gurgled down the pipe into the septic tank and landed like a brick. Fun times.

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2 hours ago, Scully said:

I think UU is your next port of call. A shared manhole at my parents former home was backing up so had a word with new neighbours and asked if they knew what had been going down their toilet etc. She denied anything untoward and tried to suggest next door ( my mothers ) may be to blame. I pointed out that the house had been empty for a couple of weeks as my mother had died.

Anyhow, I did notice the woman had a baby so suspected wet wipes etc. Any attempt I did to clear by rodding didn’t do any good so I called UU.

They discovered not only wet wipes but disposable nappies! They had a stern word with the lady concerned and it didn’t happen again. 
Give UU a call. 

Pretty much exactly the same on our street system, Anglia water also had to have a 'stern' word and touch wood, cross fingers etc we have been trouble free for 6 months now

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6 hours ago, steve1066 said:

it is hard to visualise without seeing your drainage on plan, if the blockage is down stream then it may not be your neighbour, it could be backing up further down from another neighbours shared drain run???
 

Here is a drawing of the layout, the blockage is somewhere between the 2 manholes.

6FC2A1FB-12A6-4518-B013-66BA21EA74F4.jpeg

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When you have a blockage can you recall if the manhole nearest the road is still flowing, if it is still flowing from your neighbours toilets etc then the blockage must be on your line, if this manhole is not flowing then either you or your neighbour is causing the blockage, but the good news would be it’s a shared drain.

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25 minutes ago, steve1066 said:

When you have a blockage can you recall if the manhole nearest the road is still flowing, if it is still flowing from your neighbours toilets etc then the blockage must be on your line, if this manhole is not flowing then either you or your neighbour is causing the blockage, but the good news would be it’s a shared drain.

It’s hard to say if the deep manhole is still flowing, there’s never been anyone in to use it when I’ve been there.

I cleared it today with rods, pushed in from the manhole nearest the house. The resistance to the rods seemed to lessen about 4 or 5 yards in, probably where the gulley joins on, so if I’m right it looks like my tenant is responsible, at least this time.

I’m wondering whether to pay for a camera just to see is there is any obstruction, although a did put a disk about 4 or 5 inch diameter on the rods and that went down no problem.

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The camera would solve the problem of what’s going if there is something there to see. If you have now cleared the the blockage I would now wait until you have a blockage again and then open the lid on the manhole next to the road and ask your neighbour to flush their toilet if the flush runs through this manhole then it obviously means the shared part of the drain is fine, if it doesn’t then you need to rod from your nearest manhole to the furthest manhole at the same time someone needs to look down the furthest manhole to see what is being pushed through ie broken bits of drain, wet wipes etc. How often does it block?

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, Benthejockey said:

Weve been on septic tanks for as long as I can remember, never had any problems really until make up wipes became a thing. Mother, sister, girlfriends theyd get through a few as well as other 'ladies things' plus mother was a ****** for pouring fat down the sink. One day the upstairs toilet was flushed and backed up the downstairs one. Several hours of sweating and wrestling later a 2ft long plug of fat, tampons and face wipes gurgled down the pipe into the septic tank and landed like a brick. Fun times.

Read the new regs on septic tanks,you have more bad news to come.

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