I have recently moved into a Victorian/Georgian mid-terrace house, built 1854, with solid rubble/stone walls perhaps 18 inches thick. Both front and back outside levels were too high when we moved in, with the back outside (a patio) level with the floorboards.
Being rather too trusting of tradespeople has resulted in some issues.
This particular issue is that in order to solve the outside back levels being too high, a tradesperson came in two or three months ago and installed ACO drains along the edge of the property and alongside one party wall.
They also drilled three soakaways. One soakaway in the corner between the house and the left-hand extension party wall; another in the corner between the house and the right-hand extension party wall; and a final one further from the house that is 'only' undermining the boundary wall.
Here's a picture of most of the drains:
One soakaway is underneath the white pipe in the left hand side of the picture, the other underneath the downpipe in the extreme right of the picture (the downpipe empties into a mains drain behind the water butt, not the soakaway).
The ACO drain that continues behind the photo terminates in the third soakaway, about 5m from the house but immediately adjacent to the boundary wall.
The soakaways are simple - drilled holes filled with stone chippings. However - as the tradesperson later described to me in writing - they have likely drilled these soakaways deeper than the minimal Victorian foundations, around 500mm deep. Answers that mention 'Building Regulations' and 'Party Wall Act' are appreciated, but I am already belatedly aware of the bad practice here.
The drains do not drain much hardstanding (water on the patio flows away from the house), particularly the bit of ACO drain on the right hand side of my picture which is not connected to the rest of the drains. I am more worried about fixing the void under the foundations, although we have now complicated the situation by running the condensate pipe for our boiler outside to drain into the soakaway.
I intend to work on a solution to this in 2023, but not immediately as I have other expensive messes to clear up. My question is whether I should be sorting this with greater urgency, and how best to do so.
So far I see three possibilities to reduce the danger to the house:
- Remove the ACO drains entirely and replace with stone chippings. Empty the two house-adjacent soakaways of chippings by hand as much as possible and replace with soil (?). Temporarily reroute the boiler condensate pipe along the boundary wall to the third soakaway.
- Replace the ACO drains with a new ACO drain with a fall towards the third, wall-adjacent soakaway. Remove the pointless adjunct of ACO drain to the right of the photo and fill that section with stone chippings. Fill the soakaways as per number 1.
- Connect all the ACO drains by cutting a new section out of the patio to join them up, create a fall towards the mains drain on the right hand side of the picture, and connect up the ACO drain with the mains drain that the downpipe drains in to. Fill the soakaways as per number 1.
Thanks folks.
