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Parents have had problems the last couple of winters with the bottom of their garden flooding.
There is a drain that runs under their garden, through next doors garden and into the main drain under the road. It appears that there is a blockage in the drain under the neighbours garden, but the occupier has past away and there's some sort of probate/will dispute so who knows who to contact.
There also seems to a problem with water pouring into my parents drain from the house behind them. Local gossip suggests that previous owners removed or diverted a drain which may be contributing to this.
Mum and dad are in their 80s and it's all getting on top of them. Obviously we have the summer coming to try and get things resolved, but they don't want to upset neighbours etc etc. To try and start to figure out what may or may not have happened, is there somewhere that has a "definitive" map of drains? Water authority or council presumably?
Best bet will be your water company. We're with Thames and I've visited their office in Reading to view drainage plans on a computer there (wasn't available on line or in hardcopy).
Where in UK?
I've contacted council and Scottish Water before as we have a large drain or culvert running across ours and neighbours houses, we think connecting to the main surface water drain under the road.
They've denied it exists.
The neighbour pulled up the cover on thiers to see a 3m drop, then a large 1m+ diameter pipe with flowing water. Embossed on the metal staple is Central Scotland Water Authority - forerunner of Scottish Water. I've offered to send a picture, but they have refused and said if it isn't on their map, it doesn't exist...
Good luck, unfortunately. Especially true in older towns/villages. Your best bet revolves around an exploratory camera survey, which could well still miss bits.
No one had any idea where they were on our property. My neighbor found one in their garden that still hasn't been traced.
Or divining rods.
In short no.
But that sounds like it's the utilities companies problem not your parents or neighbours. Once the drainage system is shared between two or more properties they are classed as being owned by the network, the rules changed circa 2011 iirc.
Report to the water company and keep pestering them.
Alternatively, rod the network from your parents house to see if that clears a blockage?
You can put "die" down a drain and see if it goes past your MH and thus trace what runs where.
Put it in up the line.
In a Manhole, gully or similar.
Easy to do.
A camera survey will show the issue if blocked as stated above.
Or rod it and try and clear it.
My mate used to have a job digitising old plans for Mid Kent Water so there’ll be some of your water company has got around to doing them.
I’m sure when I worked for the Environment Agency we had a few GIS layers available.
Apparently the blockage appears to be discarded concrete, from what my elderly parents understand from what the man with the camera told them.
I might have a go at the water board (Severn Trent) for them.
Screwfix sell drain dye.
Best bet is water company though. Tell them there are turds washing across the lawn. These will get priority as its a health amd safety issue
The poo comment works sadly, our pumping station isn't sufficient so when it rains hard, some nearby houses get raw sewage in garden. Water co come and clear up.
Said houses have non return valve s on waste or it would back up...nice
Has a new building/ extensions or anything been built in the area on top of a demolished area or similar?
Sometimes old pipes can be left in the ground.
When the new foundations are dug and filled with concrete if the old pipe is still there and open the concrete goes down it and into the system.
Your local council should have this information, it's what they use to avoid punching through power lines when digging the road up. (I briefly looked after this MapInfo GIS system for BwDBC.)
In this specific scenario though I'd be contacting utilities. You don't need to know where pipes are, they need to come fix it.
I needed to find where ours drains were and ended up trying NWL (Northumbria) for a drains plan. NWL told me how to obtain a plan, which would have entailed paying them for it. They never replied... handy that.
Fortunately the drains problem disappeared. The neighbours drain was damaged, and was causing a lot of nasty smells through both our properties. They got it sorted by DynoRod.
The mapping of underground assets in the UK is very poor. Particularly at the household level you really shouldn't expect there to be a map or if there is for it to be accurate, sorry. You can ask the utilities company for a map and they can charge for their time in accessing it, or you can offer to go in to their offices to view. But that doesn't really solve anything for the OP.
As others have said, as long as the drain has more than one household discharging to it, it becomes the utilities responsibility (a 'sewer'), so that is your first call for the flooding garden. Do note, if the blockage is found on a stretch that only one house discharges to (there is no-one else upstream? and the blockage is only on their drain before it joins the neighbours) then the utilities can - as in they are legally allowed to - come back to you to recover the cost of sorting it, they don't always bother and usually this is covered by your home insurance. As others have said, you can just engage a DynoRod type firm to come and camera survey or flush the drains.
"There also seems to a problem with water pouring into my parents drain from the house behind them". It is illegal to divert water from your property onto someone else's if it causes flooding / a nuisance (Water Resources Act 1991). However, to get this sorted they need to speak with the neighbours, and may have to start a dispute if the neighbours aren't willing to discuss the problem and find a solution ("they don’t want to upset neighbours"). Are we talking large gardens and an open drain or similar being diverted, or a drain for multiple houses (wastewater?), or the neighbours have modified their downpipes and letting rainfall flow overland? I can have a look at what info we have on our systems if you are willing to give a postcode, but as I said in a housing estate unless very new it is unlikely we have much mapping of underground assets.
I might have a go at the water board (Severn Trent) for them.
good luck dealing with them. If my experience chasing up a water leak that they swore blind was a ‘local spring’ over four visits and 11 months that finally turned out to be a leak then it was ‘oh by the way it’s your responsibility to get it sorted and we’re going to serve you a legal notice to get it fixed in two weeks over Christmas or we will charge you a huge fee’ is anything to go by.
We have something similar near our house so we had contractors and the utilities firm out to investigate a communal land drain which has backed up and flooded around some houses upslope (next door genuinely was an island for a couple of days last year). There is very little information and all we discovered about the land drain is that it doesn't run as everyone thought it did but disappears from our garden downhill towards next door at a depth of 8 or 10 ft. To investigate further requires a mighty machine which comes on a 20 ton wagon, but the bridge to access our road has a 7.5 ton weight limit, so we are all stuck.
The answer is no.
There isn't even a definitive map of mains water pipes.
We discovered one running under our house a few years back, when it sprung a leak. Water board had no idea it was there, nor what it was doing, so dug up the road and cut it off! They didn't even know where it connected in to the known mains pipe network as it doesn't seem to connect to the water main running down the road!
There isn’t even a definitive map of mains water pipes.
I heard a piece of news 0n the radio last week saying that one is imminent
https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/news/digital-map-underground-pipes-cables
There was something on the telly box the other day saying this is something that is happening / completed.
Think it might have been on Countryfile?
one is imminent
depends on your definition of imminent....(and completeness)
there is definately not a complete record of all pipes - and there is unlikley to ever be as the extent of the network is so vast.
Each sewer company holds a map of their assets - that they know about.
in 2011 legislation changed so more sewers were adopted. all sewers serving more curtilage (more then one owner) were 'adopted'. giving there are thousands and thousands of miles of this additional drainage - there is little to no record of all of the, once private, sewers unless they had 'issues'.
If its a ST asset (built before 2011) and the CCTV survey shows a blockage ST should come and sort it (eventually).
If the drain in question is surface water then this could potentially remain private as rules for transfer were a bit more complicated. You would need to know if it connects to a ST asset to see if it has become adoptable.
Sewer record plans are usually available to purchase from the sewer company for about £60.
i do a lot of this as my job.
Your local council should have this information, it’s what they use to avoid punching through power lines when digging the road up. (I briefly looked after this MapInfo GIS system for BwDBC.)
I'm not saying you are wrong but they shouldn't (but they might)
To answer the question... no there is not a definitive map, most of the advice above including Cougars is good for partial info. Councils have no mandate to keep records and digging has to be based on data from the utilities companies that is no older than 3 months old (its dropping or may have just dropped to 28 days in the most recent/next PAS). The most comprehensive option is probably https://lsbud.co.uk/ which is free but there is no universal buy in to such a system and even those that are signed up in reality its only going to be as good as their records. That would atleast tell you who potentially owns it or who owns potential connections... the records generally stop when you get into private boudnaries but hwen they are shared utilites passing over an individual plot they "should" have a record.
Drains could be water company or a drainage board or private. Or completely forgotten about... In scotland is "simpler" with a single water company but prior to SW it was just as complicated so the legacy is no less complicated... Matt don't accept that response they inherited the assets of all that went before so complain and or go to the ombudsman https://www.spso.org.uk/
The "discarded concrete" is probably a collapsed pipe or structure.
Where in UK?
I’ve contacted council and Scottish Water before as we have a large drain or culvert running across ours and neighbours houses, we think connecting to the main surface water drain under the road.
They’ve denied it exists.
The neighbour pulled up the cover on thiers to see a 3m drop, then a large 1m+ diameter pipe with flowing water. Embossed on the metal staple is Central Scotland Water Authority – forerunner of Scottish Water. I’ve offered to send a picture, but they have refused and said if it isn’t on their map, it doesn’t exist…
Our experience as well, ours was installed by the local authority in the 60's and AFAIK is still shared bwetween the houses until it hits the actual main sewer.
You can put “die” down a drain and see if it goes past your MH and thus trace what runs where.
Put it in up the line.
In a Manhole, gully or similar.
Easy to do.
I think they would prefer you to use dye, don't use dead things as Pooh sticks.
I’m not saying you are wrong but they shouldn’t (but they might)
Fair, I suppose I was being a little presumptuous given that I'm working from a sample size of one council and it's a two decades old memory.
If your blockage is concrete, it could be a big job to solve. The team that you had out with the camera should be able to tell you if they think it could be cleared by jetting (blasting it with water) - that would only work if it's really broken down concrete.
If not, it's likely to be a mechanical job and may involve digging up and replacing a portion of the drain.
You can get a utility plan from someone like this-
https://www.technicsgroup.com/services/utility-report-desktop/
If the drain isn't on there it's a private drain and your responsibility (or the responsibility of whoever's land it goes under). If it's on the plan then it's for Severn Trent to solve. That's as close to a definitive plan as you'll get. They're not 100% accurate though.
Each sewer company holds a map of their assets – that they know about.
And maps get lost / not properly updated. Given some of their assets are Victorian or earlier, I suspect their records are pretty patchy...
The answer is no.
Is nonsense. On privatisation many years ago one of the main priorities of the utility companies was to get accurate record of the assets including PUBLIC sewers. Note public. Many records were passed over from local councils who previously held them and a huge amount of work was also done on new survey work. I know this because I used to be a civil engineer with Manchester City Council main drainage department. We needed those records not just so we could refer to them when problems arose but to create large scale computer models of the system (Google Wallingford Procedure if you want to know more). After privatisation I worked for a company involved with the provision of mapping systems to Water Companies, digitising existing records and surveying to fill in gaps and to correct errors. They do not have detailed records of private sewers, but they should be your first port of call.
And maps get lost / not properly updated. Given some of their assets are Victorian or earlier, I suspect their records are pretty patchy…
See above.
Thanks guys, there's some properly useful stuff in here.
The whole history of the drain is becoming geriatric Chinese whispers as none of the original parties are still resident/alive.
Have a suspicion it may originally have been to deal with surface water, there are a few springs in the village