Moving a drain cover

[magnatom]

Hi,

We are wanting to create a play area for the kids on the garden. Our plan is to put rubber chips down (between 5 and 10 cm deep) to create a safe surface to play on. However, in the area that we are wanting to put this there is a small black (square) inspection chamber.

It is level with the plumbing in the kitchen so I assume that it is somethng to do with the drainage from there (although our large drainage covers are on the other side of the house).

How do I find out what type of inspection chamber this is? Also if I can move it, is it a job that a reasonably competent DIYer could do? I'd probably only have to move it a couple of metres further into the garden

Thanks for your help

 

[BobSpoons]

Drainage is a section of the building regulations and changes to them should go through them (even below-ground domestic) which makes things more complicated.

Moving it all depends upon what drain runs connect into it and generally would also involve digging up those drain runs and re-laying so that they still connect to it in a straight line (for such as rodding purposes and to avoid blockages). It also depends upon whether you can move it and still keep within the required fall-gradient requirements set down in building regulations.

Moving items such as this also causes issues if another property is connected to it and they put waste/water down the drain while the move is in progress which causes a mess if the existing runs arent temporarily stopped off.

Really it very much depends on what connects to the chamber but building regulations issues do make it not so much straight forward.

Have you considered if you can build-up your rubber chipping play-area so that it is a number of inches above the level of the inspection chamber? This way you could then get some form of rubber-slab that could be fixed over the top of the inspection chamber so that access to the chamber is retained but the soft-surface is also still retained for children protection. Might be a lot simpler than trying to move drainage.

BobSpoons