Sewer connection and associated utilities works, Creaton

Projects

Sewer connection and associated utilities works, Creaton, case study

We were approached by David, a friend of his recommended he contact us regarding his project whereby he required a sewer connection and various other utilities laying from his barn conversion, all the way down to the Highway, 250 metres away.

Objective

Our objective was to connect to the sewer in the Highway and lay pipework to the boundary with the property. And then to lay drainage including pipework & manholes, from the boundary with the Highway, all the way to the location of the barn conversion, over 200 metres away. We also laid other services in the same trench.

About the project

.

As is usual, we took care of both the Section 106 to Anglian Water, and also the Section 50 to Highways. Our customer already had drawings for the proposed drainage in the site, but we asked for amendments to be made to include the work in the Highway. These included for the pipework to be laid across the road to the connection point in the footpath. A ‘drainage drawing’ submitted to the Water Authority for a Section 106 has to include the pipework, detailing the pipe material & size, it has to detail the size of the existing sewer we are to connect onto, and the method of connection. In this case the method of connection was ‘Junction Insertion’.

With the drainage drawing amended, we facilitated the Section 106 application to Anglian Water. This was passed within a couple of weeks, and with the Section 106 Approval Letter in hand we made the application to Highways for the Section 50 – you cannot legally apply for a Section 50 to ‘dig up the road’ before you have the Section 106 from the water authority. Highways have a duty of care to ensure we have permission to connect onto the target apparatus, in this case the public sewer. As part of our Section 50 application to Highways, we nominated ‘give and take’ traffic management, as the road was a quiet ‘dead-end’ road without much traffic. The Section 50 was approved within 3 weeks, as is usual for a simple S50 application – but beware, the application can often take much, much longer. Click here to find out more.

We had to give 3 weeks’ notice to Highways that we wished to use our Section 50 Licence. We started on the ‘other’ side of the road to the site, in the footpath, where we believed the public sewer to be. We found the pipe at 1.6m deep, and under various other services. We made the connection onto the public sewer on day 1, and this was inspected and passed by Anglian Water on day 2. With the connection made and approved, we worked our way across the road, laying 100mm clay pipes in the direction of the site. We completed the work in the road in two halves, reinstating the first half with tarmac before continuing with the second half. The work in the Highway was complete in 6 days, including all reinstatement.

We arranged with our customer to carry out the works in private property straight after the work in the Highway. The work in private property included laying 110mm plastic pipework for the foul drainage, and various manholes along the way, and also other services relating to the barn conversion. These included 125mm electric duct, 90mm BT duct, 32mm water pipe and also a spare 63mm electric duct for future use, i.e. electric gates or similar.

We dug various trial holes and CAT-scanned the site for electric, and luckily found there to be no services in the first half of the route. There was some electric in the second half nearest the barn conversion, we marked these and also dug exploratory holes to ascertain depth of cables etc.

The electric ducts were supplied by National Grid, as is usual, and we collected them from their local depot. We dug our trench about 1.2m deep. The foul and the water pipe were laid towards the bottom, the foul in gravel surround and the water in sand surround, with warning tape to cover. The two electric ducts were laid above and also the BT, and laid in sand surround and with more warning tape to finish.

The services were all laid to one side of the farm track leading to the barn conversion, but we had two tarmac roads to cross further up, which we reinstated with tarmac afterwards. We pulled draw cords through the ducts to enable cables to be pulled through later. With the total distance of pipework being in excess of 200 metres, and with four separate rolls of 32mm water pipe being laid and joined together, we decided to fusion-weld the water pipes together so we could be sure that the joints were 100% watertight under pressure later on when the connection was done in the Highway by Anglian Water. The most common way to join water pipes together is by way of ‘compression joints’, but it is harder to know for sure that the connections are good, in advance of the pipes being live, and we wanted to have confidence that we could backfill in advance of this.

All trenches were compacted in layers and reinstated, whether it be with grass or topsoil, or tarmac where we crossed roads further up. The ground at the top was particularly wet, and some of the foul pipe runs were in excess of 1.8m deep here. We found various land drains running through our trenches at this point as well, which made our job harder, with water pouring into our trenches as we were excavating and laying various pipes and ducts. With all of the trenchwork complete, we went back to the bottom of the track and tidied the site from start to finish, scraping the farm track as we went, and hosing and sweeping where required

Timeline

Time taken to quote for the works: Less than 1 week

Time taken to obtain Section 106 Licence from AW: 2 weeks

Time taken to obtain Section 50 Licence from Highways: 3 weeks

Leadtime to use S50 Licence: 3 weeks

Time taken to do the work: 3 weeks

Total time: 12 weeks

Do you need a sewer connection needs doing? Click here to enquire.

Don’t leave it too late for a sewer connection, most people do! Read our article here: How long does it take to do a sewer connection?

Click here to see more of our case studies.

Vehicle crossover, Knuston

Projects

Vehicle crossover and tarmac drive, Knuston

We were approached by a regular customer of ours, who had been redeveloping a large property in the village of Knuston in Northamptonshire. The driveway had already been block-paved in the main. The entranceway was being made bigger with new walls and electric gates, and the customer wanted tarmac for this part. There was an existing crossover, in tarmac, but it was very tired and falling to bits, so it was decided to resurface this at the same time.

Objective

Our objective was to lay tarmac in within the new entranceway and between the new stone walls, but also to excavate the existing crossover and to relay with tarmac, all at the same time.

About the project

Whilst our customer was having completing the remainder of the block paving within the site, and building the walls either side of the new crossover, we approached Highways regards resurfacing the existing crossover. We were told this would need a Section 171, as opposed to a Section 184, which is to create a new crossover from scratch. In deciding method of traffic management we had to consider that the footpath would be out of action for 2 days. As there was no footpath on the other side of the road, we didn’t have the option to simply close the footpath and send the pedestrians over to a footpath on the other side of the road. The pedestrians would have to go in the road, via a dedicated ‘pedestrian walkway’, and for this to be possible we would need 2-way traffic lights to close the lane nearest. This would also enable us to park works vehicles adjacent to the site.

We set up the traffic lights at 8am on day 1. We proceeded to excavate the existing crossover to the required depth for type 1 MOT and for the crossover construction which in Northamptonshire is 100mm of 20mm-size base course, and 20mm of 6mm ‘top-coat’. The area to be laid in tarmac extended beyond the crossover at the front, between the new walls that had been build to the front of the property, and all the way to where the block paving had been laid in the site. The type 1 that had been laid and compacted by the customer was checked for levels and didn’t require any further work.

The spoil was removed from site by the end of day 1 and preparations made to tarmac the following day. On day 2 we arranged for base course to be delivered at 8am, and it arrived shortly after. The tarmac was delivered on a lorry with chutes to the rear, which we used to fill wheelbarrows. The base course was in and laid before 11am. The 6mm ‘top-coat’ was delivered around 1pm and this was in and compacted within an hour and a half.

The new crossover and tarmac laid to the rear of the crossover was cool to walk on within a couple of hours. The traffic lights were taken down ready for the heavier teatime traffic, but we kept traffic off the crossover until the following morning, when it was open and for the customer to use.

Timeline

Time taken to quote for the works: Less than 1 week

Time taken to obtain Section 171 Licence: 1 week

Leadtime to use S171 Licence: 4 weeks

Time taken to do the work: 2 days

Total time: Just over 6 weeks

Do you need a vehicle crossover doing? Click here to get a quote. Click here to see more Vehicle Crossover case studies.

Treatment Plant Installation, Preston Deanery

Projects

Treatment Plant, Finedon, Case Study

We were approached by a domestic customer in Preston Deanery, Northants, They had an old septic tank, and this was preventing them from selling their house, as septic tanks are no longer compliant in most cases.

Objective

Our objective was to install a new septic tank, including electrical connection. Then to lay pipework to a live watercourse, and to switch the old foul system over to the new Treatment Plant.

We did a site survey first, to ascertain levels, including levels of the existing foul system and septic tank, and how it would work with the inlet level on a new Treatment Plant. We also had to factor in the level of the watercourse (the stream) relative to the outlet on a new Treatment Plant. The house had 6 bedrooms, so would ordinarily need an ‘8-person’ Treatment Plant. However, the property had he potential to add more rooms and bedrooms, and was soon to be sold, so we opted for a 10-person plant to allow for extra future capacity. The levels didn’t work very well with the stream – the outlet level on the plant was about the same height as the level of the stream in summertime. With the level of the stream likely to be much higher during wetter months, this would put the outlet of the plant below the level of the stream, which would have the effect of flooding the plant. A one-way non-return valve would be solution to prevent the plant from being flooded, but still, the effluent from the plant would not be able to discharge for many months of the year.

We therefore opted for a ‘pumped outlet’ whereby the effluent is pumped uphill and then discharges into the stream at the very top, and away from the level of the stream down below.

We started the work in September, but the weather wasn’t great, so we brought track mats to site, to move the plant about the garden without causing too much damage to the grass. We excavated for the Treatment Plant first, and installed it on a concrete slab, with full concrete surround. The plant was installed in order that the inlet was low enough for the existing foul drainage system to be able to discharge into it. This put the plant about 250mm below the existing grass, so we needed a riser fitting to the plant, which was supplied to us by the manufacturer, Marsh Industries. We’ve been working with Marsh for nearly 20 years and always install their Treatment Plants, which are made to order.

With the plant installed, we excavated for and lay the outlet pipe, this was a black 32mm MDPE pipe. This was laid to within 3m of the stream, and then put into a 110mm underground drainage pipe. The pipe was surrounded with ‘fill’ sand, and warning tape laid above, and then the trench backfilled and the grass reinstated.

We then excavated for the electric feed to the plant, this was laid in a black 63mm duct. The electric feed was taken from one of the outhouses, with an isolator fitted, as per Building Regs. We instructed an electrician, who connected up by the ‘blower’ which blows oxygen into the plant, and also the pump which pumps the effluent out to the stream, when the effluent in the plant gets to a certain level.

We then excavated for and made the switchover from the old system to the new system, which included fitting a new manhole where the old pipework met our new pipework. All systems were tested, and the remainder of the garden and gravel driveway reinstated.

The work took a bit more than a week, and as with an install of any Treatment Plant, it’s good to see a satisfied customer, and no longer with the worry of a non-compliant septic tank.

Our customer was kind enough to leave us a 5-star review on Google afterwards. Click here to see our Google reviews

Timeline

Time taken to quote for the works: Less than 1 week

Our leadtime to carry out the works: 6 weeks

Time taken for Treatment Plant to be manufactured: 6 days

Time taken to do the work: 6 days

Unfortunately it took over two weeks for the customer to obtain the full Building Control approval certificate. Whilst this is usual, it did hold up the sale of the property.

If you need a Treatment Plant installling and the project is part of selling a property, be sure to contact us with as much notice as possible.

Gabion retaining wall, Irthlingborough

Projects

Gabion stone Retaining wall, Irthlingborough, Case Study

Longstanding customer of ours, Whitworths, asked us to construct a gabion stone retaining wall to enable extension of existing parking area at their site in Irthlingborough.

Objective

We were tasked with creating a gabion stone retaining wall 1.8m high and 200m long, to enable our customer to extend their existing hardstanding area, in preparation for future expansion.

About the project

A gabion stone wall had been started many years ago adjacent to the boundary with surrounding fields. This had been done with granite stone. Our customer asked us to extend this to bring it up to a height in order that the existing hardstanding area could be extended closer to the site boundary.

The design included a foundation for the baskets, made with 6F2 recycled concrete. This was already on site and had been processed on site recently, as part of a demolition project. We compacted the 6F2 in layers to bring it up to the required level. The gabion stone baskets were installed with a slight fall to the site, to help with the pressure of the ground that would be put up against the wall later. We used good quality gabion baskets for this, there are varying qualities of gabion baskets on the market, but from previous experience some of the cheaper options available tend to ‘bulge’ in time with the weight. We’ve also learnt to install the internal straps that are available and that go inside the baskets prior to filling them with stone, this also helps to reduce bulging.

The original gabion stone wall that had been done many years ago had been done with granite stone, however we used ironstone on this occasion, this with cost in mind and also local availability. With the baskets in place, we started to fill them with stone. The stone can, generally, be put into the baskets with a machine. But there is some sorting required, which had to be done by hand, particularly with the face of the wall and on top, where the stone will be seen.

The wall was 1.8m high in places and stepped back from the watercourse at 45 degrees. With all of the gabion wall constructed, we put some of the excess 6F2 that was on site, up against the wall. The work to bring the site up to the required level is a long term project, but is ready to be completed at a later date.

It was a pleasure to carry out this work for a longstanding customer of ours, and on our doorstep too, in Irthlingborough. A lot of our employees actually live in the town. We look forward to continuing our working relationship with Whitworths in the future.

Do you have a similar project you would like a price for? Please visit our website and fill out our contact form. We undertake all types of groundwork projects, both commercial and domestic, see here for our full list of services www.jwc.co.uk

Treatment Plant Installation, Silsoe, Bedfordshire

Projects

Treatment plant installation, Silsoe, Case Study

We were approached by our domestic customer in Silsoe, Bedfordshire, who had an old septic tank with various problems and which was not compliant. They wanted a new Treatment Plant fitting in its place.

Objective

Our objective was to install a new treatment plant and re-route the existing drainage to this, from the old septic tank. The septic tank was not particularly old, but was not compliant to discharge effluent into the ground under new EA and Building Regs guidance, and the land drainage or soakaway was not coping well in discharging the effluent, this is one of the most common reasons for septic tanks failing.

About the project

Prior to ordering the new treatment plant, we had to take some levels to site to ascertain the invert level of the existing drainage, this level is critical in determining the length of the ‘neck’ on the new plant, which are all made to order. We use Marsh Industries for all our Treatment Plants and Pump Stations, and have been doing so for over 15 years now. We gave our customer the choice of either an 8-person plant or a 10-person, and they chose to go with the 8-person.

We started by excavating for and installing the new treatment plant, leaving all of the existing drainage running into the old septic tank whilst the bulk of the work was being carried out on site. The plant was laid on concrete and completely surrounded in concrete. The plant has to be filled with water whilst the concrete is being packed around the outside, with the level of the concrete never coming higher than the level of the water inside. On the following day, with the concrete having ‘cured’, the water can then be pumped out. The strength of the plant is dependent on the concrete surround, they are not designed to take the weight and the pressure of the ground around the outside without the concrete.

The effluent from the new Treatment Plant was to disperse into a watercourse on the boundary of the property, which is by far the best way to legally discharge of the effluent, and it’s also the cheapest way, much cheaper than excavating for and laying land drainage. The levels worked for the effluent to discharge to the stream by gravity, which was great. This pipework was installed after the plant install, and the grass reinstated on top.

The plant was conveniently located adjacent to a double garage, with full electrics. This was ideal for connecting the plant up to. We excavated for and laid a 63mm black electric duct to the outside of the garage. The duct was surrounded in sand with electric warning tape to cover, the trench backfilled and the grass reinstated. Our customer appointed their own electrician, but we liaised with him as to what was required. As per building regs, a treatment plant needs its own isolator, which the electrician sited on the inside of the garage. Quite often they are sited outside, but either is acceptable.

We then had to divert the existing drainage from the old septic tank, to the new treatment plant. We excavated for all the pipework first before making the switchover. With everything dug out ready for the final piece of pipework, we ‘bunged’ the pipework from the house and switched the pipework over. This way, our customer was able to continue to flush their toilets and carry on using the system throughout.

The existing septic tank was quite extensive and the customer asked that we fill this huge void underneath their driveway, with some of the spoil that had been generated from the excavation for the new treatment plant. To enable us to do this, we asked the customer to have the septic tank emptied one last time after the switchover had been done. This enabled us to fill it with the excavated material. We compacted it best we could on top, and reinstated with grass, getting rid of all the old manhole covers on the top of the septic tank.

With the electrical connection done by the customer’s electrician we checked the new system over and everything was working great. We reinstated some tarmac on the edge of the driveway, but most of the reinstatement was in grass. We managed to salvage most of the turf that we had taken up and put this back, which just left a few gaps here and there, which we filled with fine-grade topsoil and grass seed.

More info

Do you need a treatment plant installing? Click here to contact us for a quote

If you want to know more about treatment plants, click here to read our dedicated FAQs page

We have in excess of one hundred 5-star Google reviews, click here to read our reviews!

How deep are public sewers?

How deep are public sewers in the UK?

For the purposes of this article, when we talk about ‘public sewers’ we are talking about sewers owned and/or adopted by the local Water Authority, such as Thames Water, Anglian Water etc. These sewers will ordinarily be in the Highway, i.e. the road, the pavement or the verge. In around 90% of cases we find them to be in the road. And a public sewer can either be ‘foul’, by which we mean that common sewerage is discharged into them, ‘surface water’, by which we mean that rainwater and other ‘run-off’ water is discharged into them, or ‘combined’ which of course means a combination of the two.

Just because a sewer is owned by a Water Authority, it doesn’t mean that it is in the Highway, it can actually be in private property. So you could have a public sewer running through your back garden, and on a lot of old properties they actually do run across the backs of people’s houses, this is most common in council properties (including ex-council properties) and also many old terraced streets dating back to Victorian times, but also up until 1950s and beyond. We have even known instances of new-build estates nowadays having public sewers running through people’s back gardens. To find the location of most public sewers, click here.

Back to “How deep are public sewers”, we have been doing sewer connections all over the country for 20 years now, and so this article is based on our experience, not from any official statistics from any water authority.

To date, we have never known a foul public sewer to be less than 1 metre deep. This will normally be at the ‘start of the run’, which basically means where the public sewer picks up the first house. From this shallowest point of course the sewer will get deeper and deeper, but sometimes if the road is falling in the opposite direction, then the sewer will get shallower relative to the level of the road. In the event that a sewer started at 1m deep, but the level of the road was falling towards the ‘start of the run’, then relative to the road the sewer will become shallower.

Conversely, if the road is falling more than the sewer needs to fall (makes sense…?!) then the sewer is going to get very deep, very quickly.

By the way – all sewers have to be in excess of 750mm deep to prevent freezing during the winter months in the UK, but we tend not to ever find them this shallow.

But how deep do they get? Well, from our experience we tend to find them to be between about 1.5m deep and 3m deep. But they can be much much deeper. In Northampton Town Centre they tend to be 5-6m deep. This is because the ground is relatively flat, but with such a dense population and sheer number of properties packed in together, and all in need of a connection to the sewer, the main foul sewers have to fall as the collect more sewerage from each property, resulting in such deep depths. A lot of large towns and cities are the same.

The deepest sewer we have ever known is 7m deep, this was only 6 metres from the River Thames in Richmond. A quick Google search tells us that the River Thames is only 4.5m deep at this point, so the sewer is a lot deeper than the Thames! If you see on the picture it looks to have been about 6m deep when built, but with another 1 m of brickwork added later on.

A lot of these sewers date back to Victorian times, and of course they would have been dug ‘by hand’, with no machinery such as excavators available back then. It’s amazing to imagine a 7m deep trench having been dug by hand.

If you Google ‘deepest sewer in the UK’, then you will come across the Lee Tunnel, completed in 2016. This is over 4 miles long and is over 70m deep in places, and was installed using TBMs (Tunnel Boring Machines) as opposed to the traditional cut-and-cover method of digging a deep trench.

We’ve generally covered ‘foul’ sewers above, and most of that applies to surface water sewers as well. However, surface water sewer by their very nature do not need to fall as much as foul. As they only generally carry water and no solids, the fall on these pipes can be hardly anything at all. For this reason, albeit they start off around the 1m mark, although they get deeper and deeper, they do so at a lesser extent. In any location where there is a foul and surface water sewer running side by side, the surface water sewer is likely to be the shallower of the two, This is good news in the event that you need a connection doing to the surface water sewer, as of course it will be cheaper, the shallow it is.

As and when a new connection is required onto an existing sewer – which we specialise in at JW Clark Ltd – the pipework has to be laid to the ‘invert’ of the existing sewer. So if the sewer is 4m deep for example, and plenty of them are, then the connection we undertake will be 4m deep. It is not possible to make a connection near to the top of a 4m deep manhole and for the sewage to ‘plop’ into the bottom of the manhole, as this causes blockages to the network and the water authorities don’t allow that under any circumstances. And so the deeper the existing sewer, the more costly the sewer connection. A 1.5m deep sewer connection will require that our excavation is made safe whilst the work is being carried, using trench sheets or a ‘trench box’ for example. But to make a 4m or a 6m excavation safe, is a completely different ball game. We can spend literally days, just sheeting an excavation and making it safe throughout. All of this makes a deep sewer connection particularly expensive.

If you need a sewer connection completing for a new build, or for an existing property where there is no mains sewerage connection, please be sure to contact us as soon as possible. A lot of developers build a house and then make contact with us, when they should ideally be contacting us prior to starting a project. We even have regular customers of ours who consult us prior to buying a plot of land. If a sewer connection is going to be particularly deep, or if the sewer is a long way from the site, then sometimes this makes it cost-prohibitive to build a new property.

See our fact sheet here which details why you should give us as much notice as possible when you need a sewer connection completing.

Use our Contact Us form here for a new sewer connection.

See here for an explanation of how to find the location and depths of existing sewers.

Guide to downloading Wastewater Asset Plans for Anglian Water & Severn Trent

(For Thames Water Asset Plans please Click Here), and start by clicking the green ‘Register Now’ button on the right hand side of the first page you come to. (Top tip – it’s generally £60 for their standard 5-day service and £120 for their express 1-day service – but we find that if you choose ‘standard service’ it still tends to come within 24 hours!)

For Anglian Water & Severn Trent asset plans, go to www.utilities.digdat.co.uk. At the top of the page, on the far right-hand side click ‘login’. Or ‘Register’ if you
haven’t done so before – it only takes 2 minutes! Click ‘Maps’ at the top right hand side

Enter the site address, or if this is a new site then
enter the nearest address to your site. Click search and click on the relevant address that comes up below, to continue.

On the map that comes up, make sure your site is within the area displayed. You will now have 3 or 4 options to buy different products, depending on location. Click ‘Buy’ in the green box next to the ‘Wastewater’ option.

In the first field named ‘Title’, enter the name of the plot – this is just for your own reference. Further down next to ‘Manhole Report’, make sure this box is ticked! (Please note that some customers may wish to also purchase the Clean Water drawing – although we will never need this ourselves to quote for your sewer connection)
Click ‘confirm’ at the bottom to continue

Click ‘Proceed to Checkout’

Click the little box at the bottom to agree to Ts & Cs, and then click ‘Next’ at the bottom right

Enter payment details on the final page and you’re done! The drawing should be delivered to
the email address you entered when you first registered. Page 1 will normally be a drawing
showing the various assets in that area, foul water and surface water. On page 2 you may or
may not have some helpful information showing the depths of manholes etc. In any case, this
is the drawing we need! Please email us this drawing for us to be able to quote for your sewer
connection. If you struggle with any of the above, please let us know and we’ll help you as
best we can.

NEW: JWC now provide a service whereby we download a drawing on your behalf. Of course it’s cheaper to do this yourself, but for £80+VAT we can do this for you, and this includes paying the required fee. Click here to use this service.

Beware….! In some instances the asset plan that you download will not show any sewers at all. But the Digdat system will still allow you to purchase and download a drawing for that particular area. And to confuse things even more, the fact that there are no sewers indicated on a drawing, does not necessarily mean that there aren’t any, it just means that the Water Authority don’t have a record of them. The main reason for this is that over time, the government has forced Water Authorities to take on and adopt more of the sewer network as their own, with pipes that were once private and unadopted (including those in the Highway) later on becoming the property of the Water Authority. However, when it comes to public sewers in the Highway, we estimate that about 90% of drawings you download, will show an accurate record. If you need any help interpreting a Water Authority Asset Drawing, then please don’t hesitate to talk to us.

New Vehicle Crossover, Kettering

Projects

New Vehicle Crossover, Kettering

Objective

We were approached by a regular customer of ours, Astar Living, to install a new vehicle crossover on Windmill Avenue in Kettering. The customer had already approached North Northants County Council and had got permission for a new Vehicle Crossover.

About the project

On our initial site visit we noticed a manhole cover in the middle of where the vehicle crossover was to go, and upon further inspection we found this to be the property of City Fibre. The manhole cover had to be lowered as part of the vehicle crossover works, we also needed to know whether or not the manhole cover was suitable for vehicular traffic, as some of them are not.

We made contact with City Fibre, and unfortunately we were bounced from department to department, and each time we were told that ‘somebody would get back to us’. We had to do a lot of chasing, and the whole process was very frustrating, and it took over 5 weeks to get an agreement from them that they would come and lower the manhole cover.

They agreed to do the work at no extra cost to us or our customer, but it had to be done under our traffic management, and under our Section 184 licence.

It only took us two weeks to get our Section 184 licence – which we need to ‘dig up the pavement’ and install a vehicle crossover. Our next step was to give notice to Highways and book ‘roadspace’. We have to give three weeks’ notice ordinarily for minor works such as this in Northamptonshire, but we also had to co-ordinate with City Fibre to make sure that they were able to come on the dates that we wanted to book roadspace for. Eventually a date was decided on and we applied to Highways for roadspace and were allocated our preferred dates.

The crossover was on Windmill Avenue in Kettering, a very busy road. We were unable to close the footpath and divert pedestrians onto the other side of the road, and so we had to put up a temporary pedestrian walkway in the road, so pedestrians could safely go around our works.

The excavation of the existing path, putting in new sub-base and new kerbs both at the road and at the boundary with the customer’s private property, took two days. City Fibre came the next day as promised, and the tarmac was laid for the new crossover on day 4.

Timeline

Time taken to quote for the works: 1 week

Time taken to obtain Section 184 Licence: 2 weeks

Time take to liaise with City Fibre: 5 weeks

Leadtime to use Licence: 3 weeks

Time taken to do the work: 4 days

Total time: 3 months

Want to know more about the ins and outs of vehicle crossovers? See here and click on the ‘Vehicle Crossovers’ tab for more information. If you want us to quote for a new vehicle crossover, click here, choose ‘Dropped Kerbs/Vehicle Crossovers’ in the drop-down box at the top and upload all the relevant information.

New Vehicle Crossover, Hardwick

Projects

New Vehicle Crossover, Hardwick, Case Study

Objective

We were approached our customer in Hardwick, Cambs, for a sewer connection for a new build, which we completed. We were then asked to quote for a vehicle crossover, which the customer had permission to do as part of the planning application.

About the project

The crossover was a bit involved as it was on a 40mph road, and it was too busy to close the footpath. We had to put up a pedestrian walkway in the road, to safely divert the pedestrians. We excavated the area, which was quite large for a crossover, and was adjacent to a ‘bellmouth’ of a small shopping precinct next door.

We also had a very heavy manhole cover on a surface water catchpit, which had to be lowered. To do this, we had to reduce the ‘corbled masonry’ and fit a modern ‘biscuit’ on top of the catchpit. We re-fitted the original manhole cover as there was nothing wrong with it.

We laid new edging kerbs at the boundary with the new property. At the road we laid new ‘radius’ kerbs to from the entrance onto the crossover. Stone was laid in layers and compacted with a 120mm roller. Tarmac was laid in two stages, with the base course going down in the morning and 6mm tarmac to finish, in the afternoon.

The traffic management was kept up overnight to give the material time to cool down completely. The next day we returned to lay topsoil and grass seed either side of the new crossover, and cleared the site.

Timeline

Time taken to quote for the works: 1 week

Time taken to obtain Section 184 Licence: 3 weeks

Leadtime to use Licence: 3 weeks

Time taken to do the work: Less than 1 weeks

Total time: 2 months

Testimonial

Our customer was kind enough to leave us a 5-star review on Google:

“Superb company to deal with.
Excellent communication throughout, most helpful in meeting and exceeding time frames all backed up by a great works team who were polite, helpful and supportive whilst on site.
Thank you all 👍👍”

Click here to see more of our Google Reviews

Do you need a crossover doing? Click here and upload your measurements and pictures etc, and we’ll normally get a quote to you within a few days.

Click here to read our FAQs relating to dropped kerbs and vehicle crossovers.

Terms & Conditions relating to sewer connection quotes

Inclusion of fees in our quotes

In any initial quote that we give, we will list fees that we expect to incur from Highways and water authorities alike. For Example we may quote £400 for a Section 50 and £350 for a Section 106. These figures should be reasonably accurate and will normally be based on our previous experience with different councils and different water authorities. However, due to the many different authorities we deal with, constantly changing fees, and the sometimes quite flexible nature of fees charged by these authorities, our estimates will not always be precise. Having listed a fee of – for example – £400 in our quote, if and when we put our applications in and we are alerted to a higher fee than that quoted to the customer, then these extra costs will be notified to the customer**

Bond payments.

Our Fact Sheet here explains bonds in further detail.We will not always know at the quoting stage whether or not a bond will be requested from us, by Highways, and we will never know the exact amount, with this being confirmed later on at the consultation stage between us and Highways, after the Section 50 application has been submitted.

Quoted depths of public sewers

On all quotes for sewer connections, we will always quote the maximum depth of sewer. This will be the invert level of the sewer. We will ascertain the depth of a public sewer by a variety of means including:

Information from public records/water authority asset plans
Information given to us by our customer
Site survey

A site survey will normally be carried out prior to us starting on site, but even in the event that we do a site survey, we won’t always be able to confirm depth of the sewer by lifting manhole covers etc. Sometimes we won’t be able to lift manhole covers prior to traffic management being on site, sometimes our representative who comes to site won’t be able to lift a manhole cover on his own etc.

In the event that we come to carry out the work and a sewer that we expected to be 2m deep is, for example, 2.2m deep, then the extra dig depth, time involved, extra muck away and extra materials etc, will be charged as extra, with the customer given as much notice as possible.

Existing pipe materials & sizes

We will always assume public sewers to be ‘vitrified clay’ pipes, unless a Water Authority drawing details them to be another material, for example ductile iron, or MDPE etc. In the event that a public sewer pipe is not marked as being a material other than clay, and it turns out to be another type of material, then the extra cost as a result of this, will be chargeable to the customer** Examples include an asbestos pipe, not marked as such on a drawing. We will also assume the pipe size on a Water Authority drawing to be correct. If the size of the pipe is different then the extra cost will be chargeable to the customer. Both the pipe material and size may be confirmed at a site meeting prior to works starting, but this is not always possible. For example, if we have quoted for a junction insertion on a 225mm pipe, and the pipe turns out to be 300mm, the extra cost in this instance for materials alone, is £300

Traffic management type & associated fees

At the time of quoting we will always quote the type of traffic management we expect Highways to require, for example ‘Give & Take’ or ‘2-way traffic lights’ etc. We are unable to take advice from Highways in advance of submission of a Section 50 to Highways, as the fee we pay them as part of the application is for them to engage with us and often to meet us on site etc. As and when Highways require a higher level of traffic management than we have allowed for, these extra costs will be communicated to our customer**

In a few very exceptional cases, Highways will make changes to what they require from us, part way through the works being carried out. Examples include for traffic lights to be upgraded from 2-way to 3-way, or for the traffic lights to be ‘manually-controlled’. To manually control lights can be particularly expensive, and can cost anything from £350-£450/day. Any such extra costs will always be chargeable to our customer, and of course once on site it is too late for the customer to cancel their order.

Water Authority sign-off

When a sewer connection is completed, this will usually be inspected by the Water Authority (WA) and a ‘sign-off’ of some sort issued, whether it be by email or on their online portal. And of course we repect that our customer will want to see this prior to making final payment to us. Most WAs will require that not only the connection be done and passed before the sign-off is issued, but they will usually require the demarcation chamber to be in as well, and to have been inspected. In most instances we do not fit the demarcation chamber, our customer will normally take care of this. In the event that we do not cover fitting of the demarcation chamber in our quote, and this has not been installed when the WA come to inspect our connection to the public sewer, the job as a whole will not be signed off by the WA, and a second inspection will be required at a later date. Our sewer connection quotes will usually detail ‘payment on completion’, and despite the job not having been signed off by the WA – in the event that our customer has not yet installed the demarcation chamber – these payment terms will still stand and we will still expect payment on completion.

Adoption of pipework by water authority

Under a Section 106 connection to the public sewer, the water authority will always adopt the connection onto their sewer. This may be by way of junction insertion, saddle or construction of new manhole. The pipework between the connection and private property (also known as the ‘lateral’) will not normally be adopted, regardless of the fact that it is often in the Highway. Whether the lateral is adopted, or not, is dependent on many factors, including which Water Authority the S106 approval comes from:

Anglian Water will not ordinarily adopt the lateral under a S106 agreement, unless an extra fee is paid. We will always assume our customer does not wish for the lateral to be adopted, unless we are told otherwise**

Severn Trent will normally adopt the first 15 metres from the connection point under a Section 106 agreement**

Thames Water will not normally adopt the lateral under a S106 agreement

**Even in the event that the Water Authority is willing to adopt some or all of the lateral, this will be normally be subject to their main criteria that the pipework is laid without any bends; water authorities tend not to allow bends on their network. As we are laying pipework amongst other services in the Highway, it is quite common that a slow bend may be required on pipework we lay, which will prohibit adoption. In the event that pipework must be adopted, we require clear instruction of this at the start of the quoting stage.

For laterals to be adopted properly, the best way to achieve this is with a Section 102 or a Section 104, these must be completed by our customer, we cannot act as agent and apply for a S102/S104.

Zonal charge

In addition to the cost of a Section 106, there is sometimes a charge from the water authority to the end user, sometimes referred to as a Zonal Charge or an Infrastructure Charge. This is often in the region of £400-£500 and is normally charged as part of the continual billing process between the water authority and the end user, soon after the connection is made. However, occasionally they will invoice us prior to the connection being made, and it may sometimes be sent to us during the Section 106 application. Whether this charge is invoiced directly to the customer after the connection has been made, or to us during the Section 106 application process and in advance of the connection having been done, this charge will never be included in our quote.

Case Studies

For most jobs that we do, we like to do a case study afterwards for our website, see here. The case study is just a brief description of the works, and will normally include some pictures of the works before, during and after. We will never include any pictures of our customer or any other individuals other than our own employees, and we will always be very selective of pictures taken on private property. We will normally give an indication of the value of the work and we will quote the name of the town or village, but won’t ever be more specific than that. We will normally quote the name of the company we are working for, but in the case of a private individual, we will simply refer to the customer as ‘private individual’. If you do not wish for us to compile a case study of work we do for you, please let us know prior to the job being completed. If you’re okay for us to do a case study but would rather some aspects be kept private, for example the value of the works, or the location etc, then please let us know. Even having published a case study, it is not too late for us to change something in the case study, or to remove certain pictures, or information, just let us know.

Payment Terms

Our payment terms will always be detailed in the email body of the original quote, and will normally be ‘payment on completion’. In the event that the value of the job is in excess of £10,000, we will normally request interim payment(s) to be made throughout the works. In the event that an interim payment is not made on time, we reserve the right to stop the works, indefinitely if required, if payment is not forthcoming. The customer in this instance will be liable for the cost of any works carried out but not completed.

In the event that final payment is not made as per our terms, the pipework and the connection to the public sewer will remain the property of JW Clark Ltd. And we reserve the right to either remove pipework laid, both in the Highway and in private property and/or to fill our pipework with cement slurry to put the pipework permanently beyond use. And in order to fill pipework with cement slurry we reserve the right to access the demarcation chamber whether it be in the Highway or in private property, and our customer agrees to this as part of agreeing to our Terms & Conditions.

**As a job progresses, if costs rise and the customer wishes to cancel their order with us, they can do as long as we have not started on site. In the event that fees have been paid to us by the customer, and these fees have been handed over to, for example, the Water Authority or to Highways, we do tend to be able to reclaim these fees back. In the event that the Water Authority or Highways are unable or unwilling to refund us,we will always refund our customer up to a maximum amount of £500 for each of these two authorities.

Author: JWC

Projects

Sewer connection and associated utilities works, Creaton, case study

Objective

About the project

Timeline

Projects

Vehicle crossover and tarmac drive, Knuston

Objective

About the project

Timeline

Projects

Treatment Plant, Finedon, Case Study

Objective

Timeline

Projects

Gabion stone Retaining wall, Irthlingborough, Case Study

Objective

About the project

Projects

Treatment plant installation, Silsoe, Case Study

Objective

About the project

More info

How deep are public sewers in the UK?

Do you have a project you wish to discuss?

Do you have a project you wish to discuss?

Projects

New Vehicle Crossover, Kettering

Objective

About the project

Timeline

Projects

New Vehicle Crossover, Hardwick, Case Study

Objective

About the project

Timeline

Inclusion of fees in our quotes

Do you have a project you wish to discuss?