Thursday, 14 June 2012

The Return of the Digger!



Timeline: Monday 11 June: As the saying goes, ‘third time lucky’ today, or so it seemed, as the water board turned up this time to make the final connection from our new site drainage system in to public sewer network in the road.

We had been such good boys Paul and I and had laid the new drains carefully to result in the final manhole depth a full 250mm shallower than the water authority had agreed we could have. This should be a doddle and a whole team of men and machinery set to work after closing the road to traffic.

By lunchtime they had neatly uncovered everything and were ready to insert the new pipe, when they invited me to peer into their excavation so they could explain why they were turning a simple job into a much more complicated one, well at least for me! Logic indicated the simple solution, but they now decided they wanted to connect the new pipe at the crown (top) of the huge sewer pipe rather than at the bottom, as conventional in the UK. This resulted on our new lower manhole being too high! So we now have to install a miniature pumping station to lift our waste water a half metre in order for it to finally get into the very much deeper town sewer!

On the plus side, the chaps were very sociable and had a healthy sense of humour, were happy to practice their schoolboy English and they did an excellent job of clearing up after themselves.

I’m now investigating the revised final drainage solution, while being grateful that we still have our original connection!

A bientôt,

LC  




                          







No comments:

Post a Comment