Drainage Services
Doing Business, the Right Way...
A consideration of drainage and its purpose and effects can be explained by the following description or analogy of a building. Its purpose? To prevent the harsh effects of weather and keep it out and to maintain that the inside be ambient and dry. A simple tool of comparisons can help us understand better what is helping us to achieve this homely state and what is potentially failing now and then learn to recognise the symptoms of it.
Roof: The roof of a building is designed to take the main impact of mother nature's worst, rain, snow and wind. It is also designed to distribute the mass of water that accumulates across its surface area and control the flow of water down to the roofs lower edge and then collect into the guttering.
Roof fail Symptoms: Damp and mould present in the ceiling and coving are a sure sign of a failed roof, be it a few broken tiles, torn inner lining and badly distributed insulation where cold and damp can manifest.
Guttering: The next line of defence for your home's drainage is now reliant on the continuity of rain water travelling from the roof and to be collected by the guttering. The guttering's sole purpose is to capture the mass of rain water and efficiently distribute it to the down pipes as seen on most corners of a building. Maintaining this flow is vital and regular cleaning of your buildings guttering must always be considered. It's important to keep it from accumulated build-up of moss, fallen leave, litter and disrepair.
Gutter fail symptoms: Black, green, algae staining on brick work, rotten facia boards, broken or loose guttering, discolouration on building foundations with pooling. Can create slip hazards, cracks in concrete and lower brickwork leading to saturated damp lining, flooding and internal damp.
Rainwater Down-Pipes: The next stage of your building's drainage is to direct the flow of rain water that is accumulated by the guttering and channel it directly down into a gully or soak-away and keeping this volume of water away from the exterior walls and foundations. Which would have the same adverse effects as a gutter fail, as explained above.
Down-Pipe fail symptoms: Due to the high volume of water rushing down a downpipe any fails in its integrity could over time seep into the exterior brickwork via old and rusted out fittings and create flooding and pooling at the foundations, again slip hazards, cracks and rot in concrete, brickwork following on to damp and mould penetration.
Gullies: Usually situated at ground level and more often than not directly beneath a downpipe or connected by ACO rain drainage adjacent to the exterior of a building. The Gully is vitally important in processing all of the surface water down and away from your home or commercial premises and usually goes directly into the public drainage sewer systems.
Gully Fail Symptoms: Due to the location of a gully usually positioned at ground level and most are open, apart from a grill cover for debris. It can if not maintained become blocked with windblown leaves and a build-up of dirt. Due to the nature of your property's drainage, if one part is not regularly cleaned then in time it will more often than not pose a problem for another part of the drainage system.
I.e. The moss, leaves and general dirt build-up like we see in the guttering, will be channelled down into the gullies. If not cleaned properly and checked regularly it will backup surface water and create pooling and flooding. Again, damp saturations, mould, cracks, slip hazards and ground movement or erosion, usual pipe collapse symptoms in part, from saturation of sustained heavy rainfall, extreme cold and heat all expanding and contraction effects.
Fowl water and sewer systems: This is the final and usually the grimmest final leg of your properties drainage systems. This is where the surface drainage water meets your toilets flush away system, the sewer systems or foul water system. Running through a connection of clay or plastic pipes underground and the only visual of their existence is an inspection chamber with its common metal covers or the ever-leaching stench from its location if there is a failure or blockage.
Foul water and sewer fails: If we now incorporate the model used, roof to gully, gully to sewer/foul water. We can already potentially see what we can't see. Clean guttering, clean gullies, no flooding, good surface drainage, regularly inspected, maintained and cleaned. Then we are left with a consideration for what we put down the toilet and the effects of soil erosion (movement), damaged pipes, roots and backed up sewerage from shared sewer drainage system.
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