Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Kitchen Sink Waste - Routed to outside drain - Is this normal for victorian house or bad plumbing
Hi all,
Thames water are doing a check on output drainage in Tottenham. The said only rain water should be going into outside drainage.
As long as I have lived here (30 years + ) I can't remember it being any different , and presumed that the way the house were built long ago. (Combined Sewage and drainage all going to the same cleansing plant)
What I can't figure out is where the kitchen waste , washing machine should be connected too.
The house we live in has an extension that has bought the outside toilet in as part of a utlity room. So can't figure out if this is an original problem or one caused by the extension,
Along the outside side wall , there is 2 rain water drainage . And the kitchen sink is going into one nearest the kitchen. I can't really where else it can go.
The guy for Thames water wasn't sure either and said I should contact haringey council to get some underground maps of the area showing the layout of pipes. How do I do this ?
I would be interesting to see how anyone else has resolved this.
Thanks
Glen
Tags for Forum Posts: drainage, misconnected drains, sewage, thames water
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Yes, this sounds like a misconncted drain. Thames Water told me that when a house conversion is done and corners are cut, drainage for new bathrooms and kitchens is often routed into rainwater drains. Rainwater drains were built to take the water from the guttering around the roof. Since the water is clean, rainwater drains are designed as soakaways, feeding the water directly into the ground. This water will eventually work its way into the ground water and into local rivers (many of which still run in Haringey but underground).
As it so happens, just this afternoon we've been on our first visit to the revamped Lordship Park. I was particularly keen to see the unculverted stretch of the Moselle river. It was lovely, except for the fact that it is clearly very heavily polluted. It has a sinsister dark blueish black colour and smells like drains. Most of this poluution is probably the result of misconnected drains. All this polluted water will find its way from the Moselle into the Lea and then the Thames.
All houses from the Victorian period onwards were built with main drainage. Any grey water from kitchens and bathrooms as well as toilet outlets should be fed into the mains drainage connection. Usually they're somewhere along the back addition, below the original bathroom.
Thames Water claims to treat the issue very seriously indeed, but I'm unconvinced. I wonder if its more a matter of them wanting to look like they're doing something than genuinely sorting the problem.
Use the 'misconnected drains' tag I've added to find related discussions.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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It's illegal, not just antisocial. You need to fix it.
Only rainwater should go into the rainwater drain - whether from roof gutters, or road runoff.
Surprised the Thames Water person didn't tell you this. I suppose it could be that your drains are like ours were until recently, where all waste water went for treatment, down one sewer. They have now built the necessary dual system, maybe that's the maps he was looking for. I didn't know until this all got discussed, that there are two parallel sewers, one clean water and one foul water, in all but very old systems.
Poor old River Lea. It's not just the oil and crap, it's the phosphates from soap that means alien algae grow too fast and choke all life by taking all the oxygen.
PS There are no original sewer maps for this area - they all got lost somewhere back in time.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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We have had a contractor for Thames Water around several houses on the Ladder looking at the interaction between the clean and dirty water drains Pamish. Ours had a hole in the rain (clean) water drain that apparently has the potential to become contaminated if sewage overflows into it. They put a cap on to seal it. They were basically working back form the river lea to work out how sewage contamination as getting into the river.
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Cool, they will prob find loads of dodgy connections round here if they can get to the backs of houses, as that's where bodged conversions have been done. Tracing back from downstream will point them at the right houses I hope.
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"Legal action can be taken. Initially, authorities usually prefer to work with property owners to correct misconnection problems voluntarily. Ultimately you will be served with a notice to correct the drainage and this will incur more costs especially if the authorities have to undertake the work and then recharge you.
The polluter could also face legal action dependent on the damage to the environment. A person sentenced by a Magistrate faces a fine not exceeding £50,000 or imprisonment of up to 12 months, or both. In extreme cases in a Crown Court a person faces an unlimited fine or imprisonment of up to 5 years, or both."
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TWA are updating those old sewers on a rolling programme. Ours were combined, now they are not. That must be what my £40 a month is paying for.
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Permalink Reply by Glen Dsouza on
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Tris , thats really intresting as I read on this site below :
And when they did the dye test they said it appeared in both systems. I now need to check the age of the property
http://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/identify-foul-and-surface-wate...
Identifying Your Drainage System
Property Age
If you property is newer than 1970, then it is most likely that you will have a dual drainage system.
Manholes
If you seem to have double the manholes (they may even be side by side) then it is likely you have a dual drainage system.
Lift the Covers
If you lift the covers on manholes to reveal the inspection chambers you may see that one system is higher than the other – this indicates a dual system because foul water drains should always be laid lower than the surface water system to prevent contamination (in case of leaks or damage to the foul water pipework).
If you lift the manhole covers and you can see sewage then you have located the foul or combined drainage. (You may be able to see toilet tissue or even, erm solid matter.)
Run the Water
Get a companion to flush the toilet, or run the washing machine, and watch where the water runs within the drains to locate the foul water drainage.
Garden Hose Method
Try running a hose down a downpipe to check for surface water drains.
Traceable Dye
If you are really struggling to identify which system you have you can purchase a drain-tracing dye which will not contaminate the water, but will help you to identify the flow of water in your drains. Ask at the builders merchants, and explain what you want it for.
- If you have a combined system, the dyed test water show up in the chamber from both foul and surface sources.
- If you have opened a surface only drain, the dyed test water will only show up when the dye is added to a surface drainage point.
- If you have opened a foul only drain, the dyed test water will show up if you flush the toilet when dye has been added to the pan or cistern.
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