Hello I'm Roger Bisby from Skill Builder and I've come out to North
London to see Rob who's got a bit of a problem with his drain now this is an
ongoing saga and when he wrote to me and gave me details of it I couldn't
quite believe it so I thought I'm gonna come out and have a look so what we've
got here what Rob shown in this in his correspondence with me is that he's got
a drain here which is a sewer it's adopted by Thames Water as with many
other sewers that that was a change it took place in 2011 when Thames Water
took on the responsibility of shared drains so this is one of their
responsibilities so this section through to the neighbour was actually flooding
and it was flooding into their cellar cooling bit of a mess so Thames Water
came out and I cleared it out and they said that the drain needed some
attention so they were gonna really lay that section through the garden there so
they relayed that section through the garden they took up all the slabs they
actually through the Serbs away through those onto a skip but knock down the
brick wall at the end to give him a bit of access because if we all like a bit
of room to work and they got to work on relaying that drain now when they reload
that train Rob thought okay that's problem over a bit of disruption but
there you go that's done and then he noticed there was a back fall on the
drain it wasn't working properly in fact there was a it was probably a dip on it
actually not not a bad fall because what they did is they laid each section as
they went and of course they ran out of fall rather than taking it from one end
to another and getting a line all the way through they ran a four so they came
back and they relayed it they dug it all up again that all snapped up again we
laid it and this time they put a fall on it so from the neighbors through to the
manhole on the corner where it goes out to the street there's a nice fall on
there the only problem is that when Rob's looks down his manhole he sees
that it's accumulating all the nasty stuff you know it's just flooded back so
that means there's a back fall on the drain so it's all right when it goes
that way but you know order to make it go that way they've
raised the height at that point which means that his bit goes backwards now
they say that's perfectly acceptable they say actually they don't need to
follow the building regulations which say that you must have a fall of one in
40 on a drain they say which Thames Water this is a sewer
we're not governed by building regs we do what we want so they consider that to
be an acceptable solution now what they've said to rob is look we
understand that it's gonna build up a little bit but don't worry because every
three months we send a brimming great jetting lorry round we run the hose
through your kitchen for your house and we'll jet your drain every three months
for it forever free service can't argue with that but he's got the disruption
he's got all that rubbish building up in his manhole and Thames Water are saying
that's a perfectly acceptable situation that's what we allow and it was a
problem he didn't have before they did the work on that bit so he's a victim of
that so if you think about it even on economic terms to run that drain from
here back to here put a decent fall on it
all the way through Shirley has got to be cheaper than spending the next 50
years or more sending a jet lorry around every three months to jetties drain out
Tim's water so now they say this is an acceptable solution this is what we're
gonna do which is to my mind short-sighted the other problem is that
if Rob wants to sell his house in the future at that point where it says that
are any problems you got declare everything he's got to say that there's
an operational problem with the drains that they block up and in he's jetting
every three months because if he bought this house and he hadn't told you that
and the guy turns up with his jet in lorry said oh by the way I've come round
to do the routine jetting on your drain you'd be a bit annoyed that the vendor
didn't tell you that small bit of information but Thames Water incredibly
is saying no no legally you're not obliged to sell the person buying your
house about that drying problem or even the surveyor are about that drain
problem because it's not an operational problem well
I would argue with that if it needs jetting every three months it is
certainly an operational problem so we've made this little bit of footage
we're gonna send it to Thames Water and we're gonna find out what they have to
say about it because Rob astride he's been through their complaints procedure
they've been out they've declared their work to be good and everything to be
hunky-dory and they've said you've exhausted our complaints procedure now
so we've got nothing more to say on the problem you can now go to the next stage
wherever that is but basically they're washing their hands of it so we'll find
out what they've got to say
dear mr. Bisbee further to my email I'm pleased to confirm we've carried out a
careful and thorough review of the points you've raised in your video in
relation to our sewer repair near mr. Smith's home I'd like to assure you the
material has been viewed by senior members of our wastewater team and I'm
happy to provide a summary of the facts surrounding the work we carried out to
begin with it's worth noting the section of sewer pipe work from the manhole and
mr. Smith's garden to the boundary of his neighboring property is private in
addition the man hornies garden is situated lower than the sewer to clarify
further we wouldn't have installed it in this way we would never touch this part
of the sewer as it's a private asset as quite rightly stated in your video a
neighboring property suffered with the awful situation of wastewater flooding
into their garden I'd like to make it clear that we take these matters very
seriously as soon as we become aware of any operational issues on our network
we'll arrange for an investigation to take place as swiftly as possible
depending on the circumstances of the situation we'll visit on a priority
basis as well as clearing the blockage we'll investigate the cause and whether
any further work is required during our investigations after carrying our camera
surveys we found the flooding occurred as a result of a collapse in the sewer
pipe to the rear of their property a repair was conducted to rectify this in
the process of the repair we found there's an existing back fault between
the rear of mr. Smith's property to the rear corner of the neighboring property
we relayed the sewer between the two manholes to improve this section of pipe
to confirm this work did not involve raising the height of any pipe work in
the rear of mr. Smith's home it was simply a straight replacement between
two existing points and is likely to be a albeit slight improvement on the
original build and I'm pleased to advise the pipe work is now in better condition
than it was previously it's important to note our sewer network is fully
operational at this time however as a precaution we'll be doing three monthly
maintenance checks with a view to changing it to a 6 monthly or 12 monthly
depending on the condition of the sewer at the time of our inspection our
commitment is to preserve the sewer system and insurance smooth operation
we're not required to improve our and we're not bound by building
regulations I trust this helps explain our position once again I'd like to
thank you for giving us the opportunity to provide constructive feedback on the
content of your video our position remains the same and I trust the above
helps explain our reasons why if you have any queries or concerns and would
like to speak with me please don't hesitate to call me on our 800 double-o
nine three nine six five and I'll be happy to help I'm available from Monday
to Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. well that's a pretty comprehensive
response from Thames Water there and in principle I suppose you couldn't really
argue with it let's face it they never really wanted to take over the
management of the sewers that was something that was foisted upon them as
a kind of a price if you like for taking over the lucrative water supply network
the government kind of said you know what we can offload this get rid of it
from the local authorities and stick it onto the water companies so in a way
clever little trick but ok we look at this particular instance and that
manhole is so close to the boundary that what we're talking about by your time
you take the brickwork out of it it's probably about six inches of pipe
work now what Thames Water was saying is that that piece of pipe work ran uphill
now I'm saying why would it you know the Victorians they built pretty well
and they knew look water runs downhill so why would they have had a little bit
of pipe running uphill so he didn't have that problem that household it didn't
have that problem before the alterations were down to the drain
so if we accept their idea that that manhole is actually lower than the sewer
and they called a sewer the bit next door by the way then that's probably
because that pipe has been raised very slightly there and as I say from that
point where it leaves his boundary is only about six inches so although
they're saying they would never touch it it really is such a miniscule bit of
pipe but you can clearly see that the water is having to run uphill at that
point and it's not making it and what I suspect has happened is that they've
raised that pipe up as much as they possibly can to get the max
fall down to the other side so there's no harm in that but it does leave this
householder with a problem so if you're buying a house and it's joined to a
sewer and you look down the manholes or your surveyor looks down the manholes
and sees that everything's running sweetly what you got to consider in the
future is whether something that's done for the next-door neighbor's property is
suddenly gonna put you in the same kind of trouble as this particular
householder it's just another little thing to consider when you're buying a
property and of course because it's a public sewer he has no right to touch it
I wrote to Bisbee I hope you found that interesting and informative and less
know what you think you know if you've had an experience with Thames water or
anybody else any of the water companies any sewer related problems let us know