Possible soakaway killing front garden plants - ideas?

[Bumpkin]

Hi - not sure if anyone's got any experience of this, but we live in a Victorian conversion flat that serves a front drain with rainwater pipes and a kitchen waste pipe from two upper flats. Our front garden has been slowly dying over the last few years with a number of different species of very established, large hedges now completely dead and I'm concerned that we have a drainage problem. A couple of workmen recently said they thought that the front drain was a soakaway, which shouldn't have the kitchen drainage going into it. Does anyone know how we can fully establish that we have a soakaway and how best to resolve this? Thanks

[KidKruger]

Possibly ask the water board confirm what external (their side) drainage is in place.

Any answer may indicate/limit possibilities of what is feeding into their infrastructure from that side of the house i.e. if they say no receiving pipes at the front on their side, there is unlikely to be pipes feeding out here from the house.

[Sue]

Once I found the right department to talk to (which took a lot longer than it should have done) I found Thames Water very helpful about a drainage issue at the front of my house.

[Jules-and-Boo]

I had Blockbuster Drains come out and they did a CCTV drain survey which found cracked pipes and blocked surcharging pipe from kitchen (ie so blocked with grease and things that the water from sink etc was going straight into my garden. They can also tell if pipes go into sewer and if not, then it will go to soakaway.

They then did a leak test to see how much water was leaking into the soil and not flowing as it should, into the drains.

It did cost though but they were brilliant and I would highly recommend them.

I now have a legal case to recover costs for damage repair.

[ladyblue]

Hi try calling a drainage specialist some good ones on the forum good luck

[lindylou]

I haven't gone into his background re: any slavery connections, but how about John Ruskin, who the park next to Kings was named after.

[Froglander]

If you do have a soak away then you are entitled to a reduction in your water bill.

[Bumpkin]

Thanks all, appreciate the advice.