B
Bazzy
Hi All,
This is a bit of a convoluted issue so please bear with me as I am not a trade professional & apologies for the length. If this in the wrong section, will the mods please kindly re-direct to the correct one!
We have been suffering an infestation of rats in our house (semi detached with garage conversion built in the 1920/30's) over the last few months & got screwed over by the first pest controller who was supposed to take care of things. The second one identified that they were coming in from the drains.
The manhole at the front had two feeds from our house & a straight run that leads to next doors house.
1) We called Homeserve to check the drains & upon their first visit, they too saw the rats in our front manhole & said we have to call our water company (Affinity) as the manhole in our front garden is a shared drain.
2) Affinity came round - did a pipe check & found a large pipe that was badly broken - said we have to get Homeserve to deal with as it was on our side of the house.
3) Homeserve came round & unblocked the drain but could not fix the pipe as their engineer was not given full notes & did not have the equipment. He ran a camera to record damage to pipe - said it was the rainwater one from the rainwater gully.
4) A few days later another Homeserve engineer comes round & again he has no info about the job but also ran a camera to find the broken/collapsed pipe & found that water from rainwater gully was not coming out of one of the exits in the manhole so concluded that it must be the broken one as viewed on the camera.
5) Another Homeserve engineer visits & again - no notes about job & did not have the right equipment - made appointment to come back a few days later as it was a two man job.
6) He arrives two days later but alone as his colleague had to be called out to another job. He ran test & again found that the water from the rainwater gully was not draining into one of the exits in the manhole & concluded that it must be a dead/unused pipe so concreted it up as far down as he could to help stop rat ingress. When asked, about where the rainwater would then go to, he said, it will just drain into the ground.
7) I was later told that rainwater should not just drain to the ground as that can cause serious issues later over time & informed Homeserve.
8) Another Homeserve engineer arrived & he to had no information about the issue. After explaining everything in detail, he went about doing a number of tests. He also found the broken pipe & that rainwater was not emanating from one of the exits in the manhole as it normally would.
He then concluded that the exit in the manhole that had been concreted up was done so in error by the previous engineer. Informed me that the entire manhole and and all pipework leading to it will have to be dug up and re-layed. He said that this was a big job that requires the use of subcontractors. He called two of his seniors and explained the situation in detail to them.
After running some more tests, he found that the rainwater gully had a blockage which he removed. He then passed water through the gully for about 15-20 minutes to see where it's exited. He stated, that as it was not rising to the surface, it must not then flow to the assumed & broken rain water pipe which leads from the rainwater gully to the manhole. At that point, he also felt that the broken pipe was a dead/unused one which originally ran to the exit (now concreted up) in the manhole.
He wanted to see where the water was draining to from the rainwater gully so he put a water hose down as far as he could with water flowing, again for about 15-20 minutes. To him, it seemed that rainwater gully had its own piping as the hose seemed to travel from the gully out towards the road in a straight path and away from the direction of the manhole. He passed this hose out to a distance of about 6m or so.
He was nice guy & did thorough checks to ensure that all the water from the various taps, toilet, showers etc in the house exited from the remaining drain exit on our side of the manhole. We thought that the problem have now been solved once and for all.
9). Today, out of the blue, there was a Thames Water truck outside our house working on the manhole in front of our house. I enquired with them why they were there as we had not called them and the engineer told me that he had a job order to deal with potential tree root damage to our drains - I found this very odd as there are no trees directly outside our house and the nearest one is about 15 feet away!
As it is a shared drain, they used the camera to inspect both my my neighbours and our drain run all the way back to our rear manhole in the garden and found no damage or issues. I explained in detail to the Thames Water engineer all of the above and after doing some preliminary inspections, he was of the very strong opinion that the rainwater gully would not have its own pipework directly out to the main road sewer. He stated that this does not make sense, would create more issues in future and that the drains for our type of house almost always have the rain water pipe running from the rainwater gully directly to the manhole and then from there to the nearest road sewer point and explained this is why most drain runs are angled as there are more houses on the road then there are road sewer points - or something like that.
I am at a loss now what to do - I am assuming that as a Thames water engineer, this guy would probably know more than the Homeserve guys and I'm concerned that what the Thames Water engineer has told me might be right after all. This would mean, that the manhole would need to be broken down, rebuilt and have new piping laid after all. Unfortunately, Thames water does not have any drain mapping information for our area they could refer to exactly identify which pipes ran to which drains.
Dealing with Homeserve customer services is an absolute hell experience and I would like to know how best to deal with this issue so that it is sorted once & for all? I am assuming that the Thames Water engineers are more qualified and experienced and that their assessments/opinions are higher than that of Homeserves? If this is the case, will/should Homeserve accept the opinion of the Thames Water engineer? I assume that it is still Homeserves responsibility to put things right if need be?
Any advice & help on how I should proceed, what ask for as well as what should be properly done would be greatly appreciated as I am at the end of my tether. I have attached a number of pics to show the drain in its original state as well as after it was concreted up and that of the broken pipe & the general area.
Many kind thanks,
Bazzy.
This is a bit of a convoluted issue so please bear with me as I am not a trade professional & apologies for the length. If this in the wrong section, will the mods please kindly re-direct to the correct one!
We have been suffering an infestation of rats in our house (semi detached with garage conversion built in the 1920/30's) over the last few months & got screwed over by the first pest controller who was supposed to take care of things. The second one identified that they were coming in from the drains.
The manhole at the front had two feeds from our house & a straight run that leads to next doors house.
1) We called Homeserve to check the drains & upon their first visit, they too saw the rats in our front manhole & said we have to call our water company (Affinity) as the manhole in our front garden is a shared drain.
2) Affinity came round - did a pipe check & found a large pipe that was badly broken - said we have to get Homeserve to deal with as it was on our side of the house.
3) Homeserve came round & unblocked the drain but could not fix the pipe as their engineer was not given full notes & did not have the equipment. He ran a camera to record damage to pipe - said it was the rainwater one from the rainwater gully.
4) A few days later another Homeserve engineer comes round & again he has no info about the job but also ran a camera to find the broken/collapsed pipe & found that water from rainwater gully was not coming out of one of the exits in the manhole so concluded that it must be the broken one as viewed on the camera.
5) Another Homeserve engineer visits & again - no notes about job & did not have the right equipment - made appointment to come back a few days later as it was a two man job.
6) He arrives two days later but alone as his colleague had to be called out to another job. He ran test & again found that the water from the rainwater gully was not draining into one of the exits in the manhole & concluded that it must be a dead/unused pipe so concreted it up as far down as he could to help stop rat ingress. When asked, about where the rainwater would then go to, he said, it will just drain into the ground.
7) I was later told that rainwater should not just drain to the ground as that can cause serious issues later over time & informed Homeserve.
8) Another Homeserve engineer arrived & he to had no information about the issue. After explaining everything in detail, he went about doing a number of tests. He also found the broken pipe & that rainwater was not emanating from one of the exits in the manhole as it normally would.
He then concluded that the exit in the manhole that had been concreted up was done so in error by the previous engineer. Informed me that the entire manhole and and all pipework leading to it will have to be dug up and re-layed. He said that this was a big job that requires the use of subcontractors. He called two of his seniors and explained the situation in detail to them.
After running some more tests, he found that the rainwater gully had a blockage which he removed. He then passed water through the gully for about 15-20 minutes to see where it's exited. He stated, that as it was not rising to the surface, it must not then flow to the assumed & broken rain water pipe which leads from the rainwater gully to the manhole. At that point, he also felt that the broken pipe was a dead/unused one which originally ran to the exit (now concreted up) in the manhole.
He wanted to see where the water was draining to from the rainwater gully so he put a water hose down as far as he could with water flowing, again for about 15-20 minutes. To him, it seemed that rainwater gully had its own piping as the hose seemed to travel from the gully out towards the road in a straight path and away from the direction of the manhole. He passed this hose out to a distance of about 6m or so.
He was nice guy & did thorough checks to ensure that all the water from the various taps, toilet, showers etc in the house exited from the remaining drain exit on our side of the manhole. We thought that the problem have now been solved once and for all.
9). Today, out of the blue, there was a Thames Water truck outside our house working on the manhole in front of our house. I enquired with them why they were there as we had not called them and the engineer told me that he had a job order to deal with potential tree root damage to our drains - I found this very odd as there are no trees directly outside our house and the nearest one is about 15 feet away!
As it is a shared drain, they used the camera to inspect both my my neighbours and our drain run all the way back to our rear manhole in the garden and found no damage or issues. I explained in detail to the Thames Water engineer all of the above and after doing some preliminary inspections, he was of the very strong opinion that the rainwater gully would not have its own pipework directly out to the main road sewer. He stated that this does not make sense, would create more issues in future and that the drains for our type of house almost always have the rain water pipe running from the rainwater gully directly to the manhole and then from there to the nearest road sewer point and explained this is why most drain runs are angled as there are more houses on the road then there are road sewer points - or something like that.
I am at a loss now what to do - I am assuming that as a Thames water engineer, this guy would probably know more than the Homeserve guys and I'm concerned that what the Thames Water engineer has told me might be right after all. This would mean, that the manhole would need to be broken down, rebuilt and have new piping laid after all. Unfortunately, Thames water does not have any drain mapping information for our area they could refer to exactly identify which pipes ran to which drains.
Dealing with Homeserve customer services is an absolute hell experience and I would like to know how best to deal with this issue so that it is sorted once & for all? I am assuming that the Thames Water engineers are more qualified and experienced and that their assessments/opinions are higher than that of Homeserves? If this is the case, will/should Homeserve accept the opinion of the Thames Water engineer? I assume that it is still Homeserves responsibility to put things right if need be?
Any advice & help on how I should proceed, what ask for as well as what should be properly done would be greatly appreciated as I am at the end of my tether. I have attached a number of pics to show the drain in its original state as well as after it was concreted up and that of the broken pipe & the general area.
Many kind thanks,
Bazzy.
