Afternoon all,
Last year we had an extension built on the rear of our house (1940's terrace). The new walls crossed existing (clay?) sewer pipe in two places. Build over permission was given by Thames Water, everything was checked by Building Control and signed off.
There is a manhole under the extension (it is is under the laminate). It is double sealed and the surrounding inspection chamber was rebuilt by the builders as it was in a really bad condition when unearthed during the building work. There are now four connections to the sewer here where there were previously two. One of the pipes was cracked and leaking and was totally replaced. We also had a sewage smell prior to this work starting, which turned out to be previous builders/owners not connecting the soil pipe right to the inspection chamber and as a result sewage had been pouring out under the house for years (when they dug the footings sewage was coming out of the foundations). This was all sorted during the work and the house no longer stank.
A year on and we have started to notice a smell of sewage coming from behind the washing machine. After further investigation, it seems that the smell is coming from under the floor (suspended floor) and the reason we can smell it here is that the rest of the extension is so well sealed and draught proof that this is the only place a smell can come in (heating pipes for the radiator go under the floor here). If we go into the garden we can also smell the sewage wafting from the air bricks on the front/rear of the house.
A couple of months ago we had an influx of rats under the house (which we successfully poisoned) but I was concerned that there may have been a problem with the sewer as there is no other way for the rats to get under the house (I have checked, double checked and triple checked this!!). Roll on a couple of months and now we can smell sewage. This is pretty depressing due to the sheer amount of money and time spent to try and sort the problem during building work.
So my question is this:
Is it likely that something could have become disconnected/cracked since the house has been settling?
Is it likely the smell could be coming from somewhere/thing else? (doubt it but can dream!)
I'm not sure on the best action here tbh. I could call out a drainage cctv to have a look. I think if there was a problem the builder would probably come round and sort it but if not, is this something an insurance company would sort or would it all come crashing down on us to pay for, with a water company maybe saying that something wasn't done correctly by the builder, leaving us to pick up the tab...
TIA and sorry for waffling!
Last year we had an extension built on the rear of our house (1940's terrace). The new walls crossed existing (clay?) sewer pipe in two places. Build over permission was given by Thames Water, everything was checked by Building Control and signed off.
There is a manhole under the extension (it is is under the laminate). It is double sealed and the surrounding inspection chamber was rebuilt by the builders as it was in a really bad condition when unearthed during the building work. There are now four connections to the sewer here where there were previously two. One of the pipes was cracked and leaking and was totally replaced. We also had a sewage smell prior to this work starting, which turned out to be previous builders/owners not connecting the soil pipe right to the inspection chamber and as a result sewage had been pouring out under the house for years (when they dug the footings sewage was coming out of the foundations). This was all sorted during the work and the house no longer stank.
A year on and we have started to notice a smell of sewage coming from behind the washing machine. After further investigation, it seems that the smell is coming from under the floor (suspended floor) and the reason we can smell it here is that the rest of the extension is so well sealed and draught proof that this is the only place a smell can come in (heating pipes for the radiator go under the floor here). If we go into the garden we can also smell the sewage wafting from the air bricks on the front/rear of the house.
A couple of months ago we had an influx of rats under the house (which we successfully poisoned) but I was concerned that there may have been a problem with the sewer as there is no other way for the rats to get under the house (I have checked, double checked and triple checked this!!). Roll on a couple of months and now we can smell sewage. This is pretty depressing due to the sheer amount of money and time spent to try and sort the problem during building work.
So my question is this:
Is it likely that something could have become disconnected/cracked since the house has been settling?
Is it likely the smell could be coming from somewhere/thing else? (doubt it but can dream!)
I'm not sure on the best action here tbh. I could call out a drainage cctv to have a look. I think if there was a problem the builder would probably come round and sort it but if not, is this something an insurance company would sort or would it all come crashing down on us to pay for, with a water company maybe saying that something wasn't done correctly by the builder, leaving us to pick up the tab...
TIA and sorry for waffling!
