drains!!

[Scarlett]

My house doesn't have sufficient drain pipes on the front so when it rains heavily I get flooding in my basement. The house is very tall- it's a Victorian bank- an old street terrace. It has 3 storeys. Does anyone have any idea what it would cost to have a down pipe added to the one that goes across the top? It would have to be a black metal one cos the building is listed... I am putting off doing it 'cos of the cost..!

[Simeon]

When the house was built the drainage would have been sufficent for the size of the roof. You may have a partial blockage somewhere be it the downpie or the gutters. Does the downpie open into a grate at the bottom of the house or does it plum straight into the drain? You may find that if it is grate then it could be blocked with leaves/debris which is forcing it to overflow. I would have the whole drainage inspected/cleaned initially rather than looking at additional drainage.

[jake-the-peg]

Firstly you'd need listed building permission because you're changing the face of the building - If you get that you should be able to get an idea of cost of parts here:

http://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/Knollands/cast-iron-guttering.html

then add on a day or so labour for a builder and scaffolding which is quite expensive.

I would imagine you'd have to replace the existing down pipe with a larger one rather than adding a new one.

You are sure it's not just a blockage or the gutterring needing cleaning out aren't you?

You are sure it's

[Scarlett]

Basically, there is a downpipe on the far side which belongs to the post office. On my house there are no down pipes! there is just one that goes half way down the front of the house and then goes into the house, down to the cellar and under the floor. When we have a lot of rain, the amount of rain coming down that pipe is too much for the drain to cope with, and the water comes up through a manhole in my cellar!

The ideal solution would be to block off that silly pipe that comes into the house and build another more normal one that just diverts the water to the ground. That is the one that I need to think about getting made!

[Hermit]

That sounds really dodgy. If the water comes up from the manhole then it kind of suggests that the problem is not the size of the down pipe but either a blockage further along past the manhole; in which case you could try an auger or at least putting a drain cleaining chemical down the manhole inspection; or the sheer volume of water is too much for the drain itself -is there any chance that water from other properties is running below your house. I don't know why it comes inside the way it does -it is just rainwater that comes up and not sewage I take it.

[Scarlett]

All I know is that it used to be okay until next door had their drains cleaned. So now all the rain water slips down the pipe into my house, rather than being absorbed into the drain full of mud and grass!