Sewage flooded garden FIVE times
Discussion
We have a shared drain that runs through our garden, under our patio, which takes waste water from 4 other houses plus ours.
The drain has now blocked 5 times in less than 2 years including 2 blocks in the last month. Each time there is a flood of foul-smelling liquid plus lots of toilet tissue and hundreds of human 'logs' all over our patio. The last unblocking and disinfecting left human excrement sprayed on our patio window overlooking our dining room - not pleasant.
The grass near the patio is riddled with toilet paper. Pets and children can't go in the garden. The patio pointing is ruined my repeated chemical and jet wash treatments.
The visiting water company engineers have unblocked the drains and have repeatedly said there is a faulty pipe (or badly designed drain) under there and it will need remedial repairs at some point.
I've received no payments of compensation from the water company to date, so I'm preparing a MCOL with actual costs - turf replacement, patio repointing, window cleaning. But how can I quantify loss of amenity in the claim? If it happened once I'd let is slide, but five times? Five times I have had to go several weeks whilst my garden is not just unusable, but unusable because there's human s
t on it.
Any thoughts?
The drain has now blocked 5 times in less than 2 years including 2 blocks in the last month. Each time there is a flood of foul-smelling liquid plus lots of toilet tissue and hundreds of human 'logs' all over our patio. The last unblocking and disinfecting left human excrement sprayed on our patio window overlooking our dining room - not pleasant.
The grass near the patio is riddled with toilet paper. Pets and children can't go in the garden. The patio pointing is ruined my repeated chemical and jet wash treatments.
The visiting water company engineers have unblocked the drains and have repeatedly said there is a faulty pipe (or badly designed drain) under there and it will need remedial repairs at some point.
I've received no payments of compensation from the water company to date, so I'm preparing a MCOL with actual costs - turf replacement, patio repointing, window cleaning. But how can I quantify loss of amenity in the claim? If it happened once I'd let is slide, but five times? Five times I have had to go several weeks whilst my garden is not just unusable, but unusable because there's human s
t on it.Any thoughts?
I feel your pain, and can offer nothing other than my experience (with a different water company) from last December. Summarised.
15/12/23: Woke to discover our drains overflowing. Called Dyno Rod, who attended within 90 minutes. They jetted the drain and confirmed there was a blockage in the main, and advised me to call Severn Trent Water. So I did, and was told the SLA was 1-7 days.
21/12/23: Received a text which said "a crew will be attending between 7am and 10pm today". So I cancelled my plans for the day, and waited at home, all day. Nobody came.
22/12/23: Called Severn Trent to be told the engineer would attend on the day. So I waited at home all day. Again. At around 16:00 I was told he was on an emergency job 10 miles away, and we were next on his list. But when he called me at 19:30 to say he was on his way, he was 20 miles away.
The engineer finally arrived at 20:30. He spent around an hour confirming there was a blockage in the interference chamber under the garden of a house five doors away, but as he was only equipped with a camera and as he was the only engineer at work in the entire county, there was nothing he could do.
23/12/23: Called STW to be told that a crew with a CityFlex truck was coming to us that day "Failing which it will definitely be tomorrow". They didn't arrive that day. Nor did they arrive on the next day having called in sick (because Christmas), and STW apparently only has one person qualified to operate the necessary equipment.
26/12/23: Received a phone call (the first and only one to this point) to tell me the crew wouldn't in fact be attending as they'd called in sick again. I was assured that we were first on the list for 27/12/23, but unsurprisingly, nobody came.
28/12/23: A crew from a subcontractor arrived with a CityFlex truck. Within two hours they had concluded that they were unable to clear the blockage because the CityFlex was too small for the job. So we had spent the previous six days waiting for STW to make available a piece of equipment that wasn't actually capable of doing the job anyway.
I then raised a complaint with STW by email and I received a call from my "Personal Complaints Handler", that he would be managing the issue from here on and that he would call me on 29/12/23. He didn't call.
30/12/23: Called STW to be told nobody would attend before January 5th. Two hours later, a crew arrived and resolved the issue.
For two weeks, we limited flushing the toilets as much as possible and I diverted our grey water and much of our rain water into a 40 litre bucket, which I emptied onto our garden every time it got full. When it rained, as it did a lot last December, that bucket was getting emptied every ten minutes). I emptied the bucket approximately 80 times, which was around 3,200 litres of water tipped onto our flowerbeds in less than two weeks and the ground, which was already sodden following weeks of rain, turned into a bog.
The smell inside our house was horrible, so we had windows open 24 hours per day for two weeks in December, causing a much higher heating bill than normal.
We got £300, plus (after several arguments) the £180 I paid Dyno Rod.
The CEO did personally ask me to stop repeatedly calling STW "A clown show", which helped ease the pain. smile
But she's just had her £794,000 salary supplemented with a £2.24m bonus, so...
ETA: The £300 was "goodwill". Their Guaranteed Standards Scheme paid out £164.75. They're not responsible for loss of amenity, consequential loss or loss of earnings. I suspect your water company is the same.
15/12/23: Woke to discover our drains overflowing. Called Dyno Rod, who attended within 90 minutes. They jetted the drain and confirmed there was a blockage in the main, and advised me to call Severn Trent Water. So I did, and was told the SLA was 1-7 days.
21/12/23: Received a text which said "a crew will be attending between 7am and 10pm today". So I cancelled my plans for the day, and waited at home, all day. Nobody came.
22/12/23: Called Severn Trent to be told the engineer would attend on the day. So I waited at home all day. Again. At around 16:00 I was told he was on an emergency job 10 miles away, and we were next on his list. But when he called me at 19:30 to say he was on his way, he was 20 miles away.
The engineer finally arrived at 20:30. He spent around an hour confirming there was a blockage in the interference chamber under the garden of a house five doors away, but as he was only equipped with a camera and as he was the only engineer at work in the entire county, there was nothing he could do.
23/12/23: Called STW to be told that a crew with a CityFlex truck was coming to us that day "Failing which it will definitely be tomorrow". They didn't arrive that day. Nor did they arrive on the next day having called in sick (because Christmas), and STW apparently only has one person qualified to operate the necessary equipment.
26/12/23: Received a phone call (the first and only one to this point) to tell me the crew wouldn't in fact be attending as they'd called in sick again. I was assured that we were first on the list for 27/12/23, but unsurprisingly, nobody came.
28/12/23: A crew from a subcontractor arrived with a CityFlex truck. Within two hours they had concluded that they were unable to clear the blockage because the CityFlex was too small for the job. So we had spent the previous six days waiting for STW to make available a piece of equipment that wasn't actually capable of doing the job anyway.
I then raised a complaint with STW by email and I received a call from my "Personal Complaints Handler", that he would be managing the issue from here on and that he would call me on 29/12/23. He didn't call.
30/12/23: Called STW to be told nobody would attend before January 5th. Two hours later, a crew arrived and resolved the issue.
For two weeks, we limited flushing the toilets as much as possible and I diverted our grey water and much of our rain water into a 40 litre bucket, which I emptied onto our garden every time it got full. When it rained, as it did a lot last December, that bucket was getting emptied every ten minutes). I emptied the bucket approximately 80 times, which was around 3,200 litres of water tipped onto our flowerbeds in less than two weeks and the ground, which was already sodden following weeks of rain, turned into a bog.
The smell inside our house was horrible, so we had windows open 24 hours per day for two weeks in December, causing a much higher heating bill than normal.
We got £300, plus (after several arguments) the £180 I paid Dyno Rod.
The CEO did personally ask me to stop repeatedly calling STW "A clown show", which helped ease the pain. smile
But she's just had her £794,000 salary supplemented with a £2.24m bonus, so...
ETA: The £300 was "goodwill". Their Guaranteed Standards Scheme paid out £164.75. They're not responsible for loss of amenity, consequential loss or loss of earnings. I suspect your water company is the same.
Edited by Doofus on Tuesday 12th November 14:59
Doofus said:
I feel your pain, and can offer nothing other than my experience (with a different water company) from last December.
/snipped/
We got £300, plus (after several arguments) the £180 I paid Dyno Rod.
The CEO did personally ask me to stop repeatedly calling STW "A clown show", which helped ease the pain. smile
But she's just had her £794,000 salary supplemented with a £2.24m bonus, so...
ETA: The £300 was "goodwill". Their Guaranteed Standards Scheme paid out £164.75. They're not responsible for loss of amenity, consequential loss or loss of earnings. I suspect your water company is the same.
Thanks for that. Horrible for you. One of my sewage floods was 23/Dec last year too./snipped/
We got £300, plus (after several arguments) the £180 I paid Dyno Rod.
The CEO did personally ask me to stop repeatedly calling STW "A clown show", which helped ease the pain. smile
But she's just had her £794,000 salary supplemented with a £2.24m bonus, so...
ETA: The £300 was "goodwill". Their Guaranteed Standards Scheme paid out £164.75. They're not responsible for loss of amenity, consequential loss or loss of earnings. I suspect your water company is the same.
Edited by Doofus on Tuesday 12th November 14:59
I think I shall restrict my claim to the Guaranteed Standards Scheme x5 (for 5 separate occurences) plus the damage to grass and patio and ignore consequential impacts for now.
oyster said:
Thanks for that. Horrible for you. One of my sewage floods was 23/Dec last year too.
I think I shall restrict my claim to the Guaranteed Standards Scheme x5 (for 5 separate occurences) plus the damage to grass and patio and ignore consequential impacts for now.
I only got them to reimburse me for Dyno Rod because, without that, I'd have got the same compensation as my neighbours, even though I suffered the most (including a sI think I shall restrict my claim to the Guaranteed Standards Scheme x5 (for 5 separate occurences) plus the damage to grass and patio and ignore consequential impacts for now.
t-covered patio). Only us and the people in the end suffered any ill-effects. One family was on holiday at the time, and didn't even know there had been a problem but they still got compensation(!)we have a shared drain on our property, after a few shyt disaster caused by wet wipes etc I purchase a set or rods. This was one of the best purchases I've made over the last 20 years. Used the every couple of years just to ensure the main blockage area keeps free, very simple.
You can do a search to establish if the drain is owned by you or the water company. It is probably in the solicitors pack when you purchased your place (f you did) .
I also think that you can get house insurance cover with additional drain cover - might be an idea.
You can do a search to establish if the drain is owned by you or the water company. It is probably in the solicitors pack when you purchased your place (f you did) .
I also think that you can get house insurance cover with additional drain cover - might be an idea.
southendpier said:
we have a shared drain on our property, after a few shyt disaster caused by wet wipes etc I purchase a set or rods. This was one of the best purchases I've made over the last 20 years. Used the every couple of years just to ensure the main blockage area keeps free, very simple.
You can do a search to establish if the drain is owned by you or the water company. It is probably in the solicitors pack when you purchased your place (f you did) .
I also think that you can get house insurance cover with additional drain cover - might be an idea.
Think the law changed a few years back so that shared drains became the responsibility of the water company (unless you're at the start of the shared drain system at which point it's your responsibility until the first junction for the shared system or it leaves your property boundary)You can do a search to establish if the drain is owned by you or the water company. It is probably in the solicitors pack when you purchased your place (f you did) .
I also think that you can get house insurance cover with additional drain cover - might be an idea.
Have to agree though that a set of drain rods are a great investment - not a pleasant job but better than being without!
I think your priority has to be getting the drain sorted. Compensation would be my last concern once sorted. Otherwise while claiming for the first lot you will be racking more up. Don't assume a compo claim will force the water companies hand, just find out if it is their responsibility to sort and if it is push, push and push again till they come out and dig it up and sort it.
We had a similar but not so revolting issue with a shared drain, surface water this time in to a soak away underground. Some recent building work had either collapsed the soakaway or the pipes leading to it and the neighbour discharging kitchen wastes down the same drain resulted in us getting water coming up the drain and causing damp in our wall.
Called yw out they looked at it, diagnosed it as soak away and not their responsibility, I asked if we could block the drain off once neighbour had re routed so they didn't flood as well and they said it's yours to do what you like with. So we did. No issues since. You just need to pin down who owns what and get that person (possibly you) to sort the cause of the problem.
We had a similar but not so revolting issue with a shared drain, surface water this time in to a soak away underground. Some recent building work had either collapsed the soakaway or the pipes leading to it and the neighbour discharging kitchen wastes down the same drain resulted in us getting water coming up the drain and causing damp in our wall.
Called yw out they looked at it, diagnosed it as soak away and not their responsibility, I asked if we could block the drain off once neighbour had re routed so they didn't flood as well and they said it's yours to do what you like with. So we did. No issues since. You just need to pin down who owns what and get that person (possibly you) to sort the cause of the problem.
Yeah that is awful - how annoying.
We had similar, the sewage plans confirmed that only one house other than ours contributed to the blockage - full of baby wipes - they have a baby, we didn't.... blocked 3 times, once per year. Luckily water company would come out really quickly and the sewage build up was prevented the second 2 times as I noticed the signs before it happened.
For my house the downstairs toilet water level was weird - really high then really low, I thought it was blocked the first time but then knew it was the indication to call the water co the other times. Maybe you have similar signs you can use to get ahead of it.
We had similar, the sewage plans confirmed that only one house other than ours contributed to the blockage - full of baby wipes - they have a baby, we didn't.... blocked 3 times, once per year. Luckily water company would come out really quickly and the sewage build up was prevented the second 2 times as I noticed the signs before it happened.
For my house the downstairs toilet water level was weird - really high then really low, I thought it was blocked the first time but then knew it was the indication to call the water co the other times. Maybe you have similar signs you can use to get ahead of it.
There is hope out there - I am up North - large puddle over a road grate that normally clears well, notice an "aroma" - did an online thing with Scottish Water, phone call an hour later to confirm location, aroma, etc. 2 hours later a small van arrives and semi clears it, saying he needed to call a bigger truck. Bigger truck arrived the next working day.
OK, they might have had to come back a few times to find the exact blockage, but they were always really polite, showed up when they said they would, did what they could, etc.
OK, they might have had to come back a few times to find the exact blockage, but they were always really polite, showed up when they said they would, did what they could, etc.
Scottish water generally get a good name I think though there are always bad stories from everywhere. I had a blockage in my foul sewer that I couldn't reach so thought it was on the main. Phoned them up and they had a contractor out next morning. He checked the main the cleared my line while he was there.
Those shared sewers are a nightmare though. A friend of mine had to replace the entire length as it had crumbled. Thankfully all the neighbours pitched in together as it was not a cheap operation.
Those shared sewers are a nightmare though. A friend of mine had to replace the entire length as it had crumbled. Thankfully all the neighbours pitched in together as it was not a cheap operation.
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