A drainage survey helps you to determine the health of your drainage system. This article helps you to understand the importance of a drainage system and why do you need it in the first place. For more information on this topic, read below.

Introduction

There is a world beneath our feet that we often forget. But the world we are talking about is complex with cable connections, pipelines, and more. In fact, it is more complicated than finding the lost city of Atlantis. However, without the intricate underground infrastructure, our lives would have been entirely different. If an engineer is planning a construction site, there are various important aspects to consider.

Among those aspects, one of the most vital has to be conducting a proper drainage survey in Ireland. It helps to analyse the subsurface infrastructure of pipes, drainage systems, sewers, and more. This allows the engineer to consider any environmental constraints during planning. So, in this article, let us discuss everything about underground utility surveys and their importance.

What Is Drainage Survey?

A drainage survey in Ireland is not completed as a part of your standard building survey when buying a home and is something that will need to be commissioned as an extra process. In a drainage survey, a surveyor will use a CCTV camera to explore and investigate your drainage pipes and identify any potential purpose. This may include:

• Any sort of blockage
• Structural issues such as a fracture or collapse
• The drainage pipes are cracked
• Root intrusion
• Pitch fibre pipes

Once identified, a surveyor will be able to offer solutions to any problems encountered, such as cleaning and unclogging, pipe re-lining or even excavation and replacement.

Why You Need A Drainage Survey?

In your existing home, there may be symptoms that you’re in need of a drainage survey. These include:

• Water backing up
• Bubbles around drains
• Blocked drains
• WCs not flushing correctly
• Corrosion
• Animal infestation

However, if you’re purchasing a new home for renovation, it can be a good idea to include a drainage survey in your searches for peace of mind. A normal homebuyer’s survey doesn’t cover a property’s drainage, and with the potential of the above pre-existing conditions, commissioning a drainage survey could save you from an expensive job to rectify issues later down the line. 

If any problems are identified, you may also be able to use this to negotiate a property price. And in case you are buying with the aim of extending, a drainage survey in Ireland will help you identify the location of your drains, which may have big implications on how and where you build out.

What Is Manhole Benching?

It is a process where sand and cement haunching sits between the manhole walls and the channel pipes. It is there to stop rats from leaving the system and to stop the splashing of waste and water from incoming branch lines as this causes waste to build up in the manhole leading to blockages. For this reason, the benching has to be installed at a minimum pitch to ensure that any overspill of waste and water slides back into the channel pipe and goes on its way.

Most domestic manholes are benched using a sand and cement mix. But on the bigger sites, sand, cement and grano mix are used as this gives a superior smooth finish. However, in order to execute the manhole benching process successfully, a proper drainage survey is required to determine all the subsurface utilities in Ireland.