tree roots – My CMS

Cctv drainage subsidence survey

Jimmy Bailey — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 08:26:44 +0000

Subsidence is one of them words no one wants to hear from a building surveyor, but if you find your property does have subsidence, the general first thing to look for is drainage in the area of damage to the property. We get calls from building surveyors asking for detailed CCTV subsidence surveys on the drainage system. These differ slightly from a normal cctv survey or even our full home buyer pre purchase survey. They include surveying all the accessible drainage like the home buyer drain survey but also on request we break into the rain water system to check the drain runs to the soak-aways. We also check the drainage within five metres of the cracking to the property with a water test on any drainage. This is to check if the drainage is leaking into the foundations of the area of damage. Quite often we find cracks, roots or breaks to the pipe work on subsidence surveys, which in turn means a very large amount of water is running under the property and washing away soil creating easy movement for the building. Sometimes this is down to poor installation but on most occasions the older properties the cause is minor ground movement. Once the surveyor receives the report they generally approve repairs to the drainage system prior to any work being carried out to the damage on the property.

Building a new soak away in Kent

Jimmy Bailey — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 08:30:09 +0000

As the summer ends and we start to get more rain and a change in the weather, at DT facilities we notice the calls for wasp nest removal fall and a sharp increase in calls for gutters that are over flowing when it rains.

There is the odd occasion the blockage is in the down pipe itself, the next most common blockage is in the pipe work from where the down pipe joins the ground through to the soak away.

But far the most common issue we find when the rain water gutters start to over flow is the soak is not taking the water it should. Soak-away’s suffer from roots that invade from any trees near by growing into them, the moss off the roof of the property and then just general mud washes into the system.

Building a new soak-away

Once it’s been established that a new soak away is needed, the only means of repair is excavation.

This means renewing the bottom bend underground where the down pipe connects, then a further five metres of new pipe work, all ran into a new soak away. Soak-away’s normally are made up of stone/shingle or some install large crates. Once the new system has been installed the ground surface is re instated and left clean and tidy.

All access spoil are removed from site.

With a new installation, depending on the location of the soak away, there should be a 20-30 year life expectancy at a minimum. Some soak-away’s last 100 years or more.

Excavate and prepare

Filling the soak-away with shingle

Replace the turf and clean up site

Drain unblocking and CCTV survey in Whitstable

Jimmy Bailey — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 14:14:52 +0000

DT Facilities were called to a blocked drain in Whitstable we found two manhole chambers full of sewage. The blockage was traced to the main interceptor to front of the property. The property had large trees running all the way along the line of the drains. The blockage was cleared and a drain camera survey was used to investigate. Root ingress was found within the drainage system, this had caused the drains to block and the customer also then found they had blocked toilets. This was all a knock on affect from the root damage in the drains. The customer agreed to have a drain root cut and on completion of the root cut we would carry out a re survey to check the extent of the damage. The drains were still in a decent condition, the roots had come through on the joints, and this can be rectified using drain lining or local structural repairs also known as patch lining. This particular job was repaired using local structural repairs as there was only two area of root damage to the drain in a 15 meter run. The home owner commented on how reasonable the cost of repair was on completion as they thought we would have to dig up the drive way.