Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Leak in Garden - similar experiences?
Dear all - we woke up to what appeared to be a puddle of water next to the fense of our garden. I have a pile of wood stashed next to it and removed it to find a steady clear water leak from the upstand on the edge of our garden. For context - it is just on the corner formed by the upstand and the neighbours garden wall. Our hypothesis is that it’s due to the rain and the garden draining but it seems quite steady and clear stream of water that leads me to believe it could be moe serious. See photos attached - any insight or recommendations on what to do next would be massively appreciated. Thank you!!
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Permalink Reply by Gordon T on
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We recently had a visit from Thames Water who said 'you've got a leak - it shows up as continuous flow on your water meter'. In our case, since the leak is between their meter in the pavement and the supply pipe entry into our house, they are fixing it on their account. If all of that applies to your (or your neighbour's) situation then that's a way forward.
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Permalink Reply by kotkas on
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We don't have a water meter yet - and given it's in our garden I have abandoned all hope that Thames Water will help, but have contacted them nonetheless. Does anyone have any knowledge of whether there is any drainage in the gardens of ladder houses? That's the only possible root cause - we don't have (to my knowledge) any pipe work outside the footprint of our property other than the rainwater drains, but this is some way away from it and the steady nature of the flow is suggestive of a burst water supply pipe somewhere...
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If your house ever had an outside lavatory (even within the footprint of the house, with the door next to the back door) then the soil pipe from that will be outside the house footprint (at least ours is) but that ought not to be a source of flowing water. Our roof drainage for the back of the house is halfway along the rear extension so that could block up but not in the running water mode that you have. Are there any signs of a garden tap - though those would most likely be fed through the wall of the house above ground? Clutching at straws, sorry.....
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Hi Gordon - thank you for the thoughtful response. Yes we did have disused soil pipe but extended our property to the back and removed and sealed it. We do have a garden tap installed in the manner you describe - water is sourced from the mains inside the house so no pipes anywhere in the vicinity of the leak. We had some works over the summer and we shifted the garden back by about 2m and built an upstand. The leak comes from the corner of the upstand. I was present during the works, as were building control and there was no sign of anything, nor should there be, given it's a garden...
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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If you know where your main stopcock is ( you should know really ) turn it off for a bit and see if the flow stops / lessens. That will give you a clue as to where the water is / isn't coming from.
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Ah - shifted the garden back etc - well that alters the soil drainage up against the new upstand, previously the rainwater had 2 metres more to go sideways and down and drain away, now it reaches the upstand and can't diffuse sideways except through the gap between the upstand and the neighbour's wall.
It has been consistently wet recently (see http://nw3weather.co.uk/wxhistmonth.php?year=2017&month=12 - 147% of average value for December) so maybe that's route 1 for now, after all, along with useful stuff from Tris and John D too as backup?
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I think that makes a lot of sense actually. It also did subside briefly this morning before coming back in full flow in the afternoon so it isn't as consistent as I feared it would be. We'll call a drainage specialist in the new year to have a look. Thank you all again!
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Indeed it did. But there is a delay of several hours as the water from the garden makes it's way to the bottom.
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So the flow of water hasn’t subsided at all. I dug a couple of holes - one just before the upstand, and another one further up in the garden, along the same vector. The hole just upstream from the wall fills in with water at very fast rate. The streams clearly come from high up in the garden, but a few meters up it’s actually not wet at all. I have emptied multiple buckets of water from the hole and now I’m really concerned. See photo of the ditch. Fills up in about 1hr, but doesn’t overflow, so it must soak in at about the rate it seeps our. It looks like it streams just above the clay layer. I have serious doubts it’s thw water mains - our meter hasn’t moved much and it is in the back garden where there are no supply pipes. I am not ruling out the rainwater theory and I am taking daily measures now that it looks like it won’t rain for a while to see whether it changes...FCB00104-0545-427E-A780-C0934D0914A6.jpeg
Any recommendations of garden drainage providers or relevant experiences would be hugely appreciated.
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