Drain lining

[marcus]

Just wondering if there is anyone out there who knows the sort of price to pay for drain repairs.

We had a drain blocked by roots over xmas which backed up and caused a flood. We had someone out who did the following:

Root cut at .9m downstream of surface gully.
Install 1 x 100mm patch repair at .9m downstream of surface water gully.

They're charging us £270 for this. Is this reasonable?

Thanks

 

[Seagoon]

It depends on how long they took, which we can't tell from your description. How long did it take to find where the problem was? How long did it take to dig down? How big was the root ball they had to remove? Did they dispose of the offending tree?
I suspect though that you probably had to pay over the odds because it was Christmas :ho2 . After all would you want to be up to your knees in sh*t in the cold when you could be at home with the family enjoying a drink? :lol:

 

[marcus]

Thanks, none of the work was done over Xmas, it was all done in Jan.  The initial survey is not included in the £270, that was billed seperatley.   For the root cut and lining he was there two hours max.   The root ball was about the size of a grapefruit. There was no tree or plant visible anywhere nearby for them to dispose of!  That seemed a bit weird but I did see the roots on the camera when he was doing the original survey. 

 

[Seagoon]

Even if you had to pay for his travel time, £270 for 2 hours work sounds way over the top.

 

[Harbo]

If this was all done internally - quite specialised equipment required incl chemical or pressure lining?
This day and age quite reasonable I think.

The alternative would have been to excavate down, shore, replace a section of pipe, backfill and make good?

Less intrusive doing everything within the pipe?

Rod

 

[ChrisR]

If this was all done internally - quite specialised equipment required incl chemical or pressure lining?
This day and age quite reasonable I think.

The alternative would have been to excavate down, shore, replace a section of pipe, backfill and make good?

Less intrusive doing everything within the pipe?

Rod

+1.
I would not want to clear/repair drains at three times that price or more. :-&

Take care.

Chris R.

 

[marcus]

The reason I'm querying it is that when he did the quote he verbally agreed to seal another drain (which is where the flood water came out from) at the same time, to prevent the same problem happening in future, but he left before doing it — just took off and didn't come in to say he'd finished or anything, which was a bit odd as I was in all the time. And he hasn't got back to me when I've asked him about it. So I was a bit cross about that, and wanted to double check I wasn't being totally taken for a ride before coughing up — it's a lot of money by the time you add on the the VAT!

 

[mind_the_goat]

So do you have a written quote based on the survey? If that includes work not done then don't pay till it is.

 

[marcus]

No, I foolishly didn't check the written quote I received properly. When I re-checked the quote after he had gone the only thing on there was the root cut and patch. Same price he gave verbally to include sealing the other drain though! I know, I should have checked, so my fault, just been very busy the last couple of weeks.....

 

[DMF]

Hi,

sealing drains doesn't sound right but if he said he'd seal it (and it needed it) then he wouldn't be getting my money before that was done.

Re the other again if that's the way it had to be done then fair price, not a great price but not ripped off price. The materials used are expensive and this is a specialist job, also with drain lining comes risk, i.e. you pay that to save digging the ground up, slabs etc so should be a big saving for you but the contractor risks a problem and them having to pay to dig your ground up and replace pipes, if you were doing it you'd want that for sure.

But.... is this the way it should of been done, i take it there's slabs you want to save or it goes deep really quick or some reason not to get the spades out? If its a gully close to the surface i could of dug the thing out quicker and replaced!

Dean.

(edit and if it's near me let me know who it was by PM please)

 

[MMUK]

Personally I don't hold with these linings. For a start you need to seal at least the up stream end to prevent weepage of sewerage into the surrounding ground.

I'd much rather trench out and replace.

 

[marcus]

Thanks Dean, that's very helpful.

 

[blackrodd]

I would think that the man has billed you at his normal daywork rate. and probably some travel costing.
It just happens that of all the computations of soakaway and sewage jobs, you'rs was relatively easy.
And just using hand tools doesn't come discounted.
Seems like some of these trades are just an excuse to print money and holiday vouchers.
Regards Rodders

 

[DMF]

No problem, reading back i'd like to say the last bit wasn't meant as a tell me who they are i'll get 'em but as in there's a good chance i'd know them and if i did they'd bound to owe me a favour :lol:

Personally I don't hold with these linings. For a start you need to seal at least the up stream end to prevent weepage of sewerage into the surrounding ground. I'd much rather trench out and replace.

Yes and no etc etc, for any work like that you would seal up stream or tell people to stop using, tanker, whatever, for whatever method used, otherwise it tends to get messy. I'm with you of course with trenching out and replacing but lining is the way sometimes, if you had a pipe go under your house say and it could be lined you'd go for it in a flash and rightly so, if i was me and i didn't my bank manager would bite one off and the girlfriend the other!

Dean

 

[MMUK]

No problem, reading back i'd like to say the last bit wasn't meant as a tell me who they are i'll get 'em but as in there's a good chance i'd know them and if i did they'd bound to owe me a favour :lol:

Personally I don't hold with these linings. For a start you need to seal at least the up stream end to prevent weepage of sewerage into the surrounding ground. I'd much rather trench out and replace.

Yes and no etc etc, for any work like that you would seal up stream or tell people to stop using, tanker, whatever, for whatever method used, otherwise it tends to get messy. I'm with you of course with trenching out and replacing but lining is the way sometimes, if you had a pipe go under your house say and it could be lined you'd go for it in a flash and rightly so, if i was me and i didn't my bank manager would bite one off and the girlfriend the other!

Dean

Going under a house I would partly agree. However, what I would do is cut out a section of the pipe where it is accessible either side so the under-house section is redundant. Then I would thread in a liner that can be properly joined to the existing either side. The original pipe under the house is then technically just a sleeve.

This is the only way I would ever consider using a liner, by having it properly jointed at both ends.

 

[DMF]

Going under a house I would partly agree. However, what I would do is cut out a section of the pipe where it is accessible either side so the under-house section is redundant. Then I would thread in a liner that can be properly joined to the existing either side. The original pipe under the house is then technically just a sleeve.

This is the only way I would ever consider using a liner, by having it properly jointed at both ends.

Your first post was rather dismissive of the technique, mine was meant just to say to you there are circumstances where they're good, unless you have a context and by that i mean were looking at the job and can evaluate all factors then hard to discuss really, accessible does not exist on some jobs for example!

Dean.

 

[MMUK]

Going under a house I would partly agree. However, what I would do is cut out a section of the pipe where it is accessible either side so the under-house section is redundant. Then I would thread in a liner that can be properly joined to the existing either side. The original pipe under the house is then technically just a sleeve.

This is the only way I would ever consider using a liner, by having it properly jointed at both ends.

Your first post was rather dismissive of the technique, mine was meant just to say to you there are circumstances where they're good, unless you have a context and by that i mean were looking at the job and can evaluate all factors then hard to discuss really, accessible does not exist on some jobs for example!

Dean.

Fair enough, my bad, I'll re-clarify. Personally I don't like using liners but there are certain situations where it is impractical to remove and replace. I would however install a liner using the method I stated above to ensure a water (and dung) tight seal. The only consideration then is the slightly reduced diameter which could cause future issues, not extremely likely I admit but still a possibility.

 

[DMF]

No bads just open discussion on the forum which is what it's all about, hopefully we're still of some relevance to the OP :lol:

Dean

 

[scholar]

We had a long section of 6" sewer pipe lined a few years ago - about 250m. There were numerous blockages due to tree roots which had penetrated the joints in the clay pipes. The pipes were structurally intact although inevitably there were some cracks.

I was totally impressed with the system and think it was infinitely preferable to digging up the old pipes. The process involved a rotary cutter to cut the roots and clear the drain - full camera survey - block off both ends of section to be relined - liner is a plastic tube the outside of which is a sort of matted plastic which gets soaked with epoxy resin - liner is pulled through the pipe (cleverly this is done inside out with the resin on the inside, like a sock inside out) and then inverted as it is pulled through the pipe - a polythene tube balloon is then inserted and filled with water which conforms the liner to the shape and contours of the pipe - this is left to set overnight and the balloon removed leaving a lovely smooth, structurally strong pipe with the liner bonded to the clay pipe and set solid. The job was done in sections of about 50m max and was done over a period as the problems were discovered.

As mentioned, this was a 6" pipe, but in any event the reduction in bore is pretty minimal and would be compensated anyway by a smoother continuous internal surface.

The initial assessment and clearing was done by Dyno-Rod (who are part of British Gas) as part of our Homecare cover. The main relining work was done by contractors appointed by our home insurance company. We had to pay the excess of £50, and I did not see the final bills - based on the first bill which I did see, I think the total cost (in 2005) was about £15,000. I was rather relieved that it was covered! Our surface water drain which runs parallel is similarly blocked and I have been putting off getting this looked at....

I cannot comment on what was done on the OP's job, but I would not hesitate to use relining any day above digging up.

Cheers