You need to talk to the water company and not listen to your builder. It’s worrying that he is unaware that you can’t have access to the drain inside the house
Yes BC asked us to get the build-over agreement for that. I was not familiar with the rules and the builder was so confident to suggest we raised it to the floor level and left it accessible. Now I know we are not allowed...I should have spent more time to check. Does the one outside need to be removed as well?
Is this extension being done under a building notice?
If you had an architect prepare building regs drawings -he shouldve found out and included whatever was required on the drawing.
On projects I was involved with the private building inspector refused to allow work to commence prior to obtaining a build over agreement.
the government made the water companies adopt public drains in 2011 (if the drain on your land includes drainage from another property it is a public drain). Any blocked public drains are now the responsibility of the water company now and because of that they have tight rules ensuring any public drain that is altered or built over or near has to be done to their standards
Some water companies refuse to allow build over agreements on drains larger than 300mm dia or deeper than 3.2m -so you need to get this resolved as a matter of urgency.
moving a drain 15 foot deep is major works
Also foundations built near a foul drain need to be deeper by 150mm than the invert level of the drain (inside bottom), in your case that could necessitate having piled foundations
Your first job is to simply get the lid off the drain then use a tape or long piece of wood to measure to the bottom and confirm exactly how deep it is.
Also shine a decent torch in there and you shoud be able to work out which way it goes, then look for another manhole in that direction and then you'll be able to use the position of that second manhole to work out where you can move yours to.
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