Installation of sewers, this is your program plan
Installation of sewers, this is your program plan
Before starting any plumbing and drainage work yourself you should find out about any Local Authority regulations that relate to your area.
Detailed plans of any changing or installing of drainage in your home will have to be submitted, and expect ongoing inspections until its completion to ensure that the work abides by the regulations. However, you will probably not have to inform the Local Authority for replacement of broken parts or sections of drainage as permission will have already been granted for the initial installation.
When rain falls on your house and property, it runs across as surface water and has to be drained properly. This surface water can seep into sewers, watercourse and become a part of the sewage system in older housing developments. In a combined system, the rainwater pipes are discharged into the foul water drains via gully traps which stop foul air escaping from the drains. Nowadays hygiene and recycling considerations have led to a mandatory separation of surface water and sewage water. If you have a modern system it is very essential that you make sure that you do not accidentally integrate the foul water to a surface water drainage system. When in doubt about the how the modern drainage system works, consult the Building Control Department.
Before starting your work, finalise the routes the waste pipes would take. The main things to consider when planning the route of a waste or soil pipe are to keep the route as straight and short as you can. You should not make your pipe runs very steep although some gradient is needed. Use the surveyor’s site level to calculate the drain fall over the complete system. In the absence of one of these, create a datum point and set levels with a hosepipe filled with water and compute the fall from the datum in this manner.
When installing your drain trench, you will need to make sure that you do not impair the stableness of the building. You have to make sure that no building foundation is weakened if you are laying a drain pipe running parallel to the building.
The pipes should be laid before too long a ditch is dug as a new trench can be unstable. Get the pipes laid quickly and, as soon as they have been tested, fill the ditch back in.
Be wary of the depth and soil conditions and if necessary add extra support to the trench. It is advisable to take proper precautions. If you are not entirely confident of the stability of the trench you should add support. The ditch should be narrow, but spacious enough for people to work with any required tools. The bottom of the trench must be smooth and clean, free of any objects that make it uneven such as stones or bricks. You may need to import a suitable material for the base of the trench if the existing material is unsuitable.
The pipe present in the ditch should not be supported using bricks or other such materials. This should not be used as support for the short or the long run because it will damage the pipe, the pipe needs to be fully supported over its full lenght. The base should be tightly packed in the appropriate manner with holes carved out to fit in the protruding pipe connections. The entire drain pipe system has to be uniformly supported by the soil bedding.
The sewage system should be designed in a way that pipework remains accessible to drain rods should sewage maintenance work be required. Therefore, a run of drains should be as straight as possible between two points. In case of any change in the direction of the pipework it should be provided with an inspection chamber for allowing drains rod access.
DIY plumbing and drainage is within the reach of many DIY fans if you follow these simple rules.