I've previously mourned that a fellow with your talents is doing ditch-digging, but I can see why you do it. You planned and marked the project and dug a perfectly rectangular hole, followed by a precisely dug ditch. You sorted all the fill into categories. You calculated the fall mathematically and used a clever level arrangement. You even considered future workmen who may need to work on that drain. The end result was neat and precise, just the way you want it. Had you hired others to do it, watching them would have raised your blood pressure. Having a touch of OCD is good thing for a builder!
Who would have thought a handyman is good at the laws of physics coupled with advanced mathematical knowledge. Most of the handyman cant work out their own wages.
@@Wild-Storm Andy is far more than a "handyman". He's a highly skilled craftsman who takes pride in his work. I've been impressed with the effort and care he gives to tasks that won't be visible.
I have no idea where the water, power or sewer lines run on my house but I could give a lecture about how they run in yours. So satisfying watching how clean and precise you work and the quality of your videos is fantastic. 👏👏👏😁
Just want to say thank you for taking us along on your journey. Enjoying seeing all the steps involved in such a project! Good luck with the next challenge you find!
Learning about drainage for a patio project, clicked on your video, heard your voice, had dreaded flashbacks, It January the 29th 2016, 17 & 18, I'm scrabbling to get my self assessment complete, Andy Mac Drums to the rescue (again and again!), Once again helping me out with your excellent videos, I definitely owe you a pint!
Great job! Cutting pipes is always a bit daunting - a moment of no return. Great tip with the level, must remember that! And yes, loved the 'said last night' gag. Never gets old. :)
I am just seeing these videos and enjoying this play list immensely. For this video, I would have preferred to see more of the removal of the old drain and installation of the new drain and pipe and less trenching.
Loving the videos! I had to replace the water main at our first house which resulted in digging a big trench that would constantly fill with water, as the supply was shared with a neighbour and I didn't want to put them out until I had everything to fix it. I ended up having to bail it out with a bucket, as the £50 dirty-water pump from Amazon wouldn't start. After seeing your water pump drill attachment I now know these exist and could have saved my self a lot of work. Saving one for next time. Thanks for all the videos!
Lovely channel please keep it up I wish it could be much long per episodes it's very rare to find videos like this and mostly only 5 10mins each thanks so much keep it up
When re-aligning a drain on my last property I used Denso Gas tape over the clips on the rubber coupler just in case I had to do any work on it again for the same reason that you mentioned.
Very interesting to see different guidelines and rules in different countries. Here in Belgium, the recommended fall for pipes is a 1 to 2cm drop per m and pipes are usually put in a bed of what’s called “stabilisé” (roughly 2.5kg cement, 22.5kg sand and 1.9l of water if memory serves me right): it’s easy to level, sticks a bit and hardens out over time (like a very brittle concrete)
Yes. I've put in my own sewage treatment plant (UK) and my information was for a drop of between 60:1 and 110:1. A lot of people just use 100:1 as it's easy on the maths. 40:1 , as talked about here, I've never come across.
It's great that you are able to do repair jobs like this in the UK. Here in NZ only registered drain layers are allowed to do drainage work. Another factor contributing to our spiralling house costs.
You're lucky with the depth of the pipe, here in Ontario, Canada the frostline can go between 1.0 meters to 1.8 meters and water pipes need to be deeper than the area frostline!
Your comment about the original pipe being cracked because the porch had been laid on top of it is pretty appropriate right now. My house is an end of terrace and my next door neighbour is having an extension built on the back of his house. There is an inspection chamber about 12ft away from my kitchen back wall and their foul water sewer and those of the two houses the other side of him all feed into that inspection chamber. No problem so far. However, when the builders were digging out the trenches for the extension foundation they found that that foul water sewer is hidden underneath an elongated concrete dome, the top of which is only about 2 feet down. They got in the local water company and council officials to check it and they insisted that as the sewer and its concrete 'cover' is 60 years old it would need to be protected with an 'H' shaped (in plan view) steel girder box system supported on concrete piers to take the weight of the extension and the footings. It has cost our neighbours an additional £5k and put the programme of works back by 3 weeks. The steel girders weigh about three times as much as the extension! I'd like to include a link to a photo I took but I don't think it can be done.
You remind me of myself always going to mighty rounds to leave it right. It's unreal the effort to cut the pipe then touch it with a hammer and it falls apart lol brilliant as always
Nice job, Stevie Wonder would be glad to see those marks in the concrete. You had to cover it up because of the weather. You've dug so many trenches recently, next you'll be building a dugout and stringing up some barbed wire.
Another great vid thanks. I love your tutorials because you always do things properly and don't cut corners. Plenty of great tips, thank you, so here's one in return, although only a minor thing. @5.05 you start hand digging to expose the pipe. You could perhaps put a bucket in the hole to take the small amounts of dirt, and then put it in the barrow when the bucket is full to reduce the repetetive strain on your lumbar spine. It's a small point I admit but once you've damaged your back you get to see all the areas you might have prevented it from happening (hence the comment). Take care of your back mate, you've only got one of em. Great tips nonetheless, and if you want a bussman's holiday you're welcome at my house anytime... Just bring your work boots😉
@@GosforthHandyman Another tip I thought of when doing this sort of thing was to use a cheap soup ladle for scooping out the earth. It works surprisingly well compared to a small trowel and due to the handle you don't have to bend/reach as much.
The way you cut a clay pipe with a four inch grinder is to cut half way round pipe in 2 places cut out half channel then it's easier access to get straight cut . Just a little tip for the future.
Well done Andy for getting the bottom of the drains in line. This is classed as "Invert" level and is super important with Foul water. Generally, we also chamfer all the edges of pipes to ensure they go into their new fittings -- which has a greased seal. Not bad at all for someone who doesn't do drains.
I hope this resolves the damp issues for you ☺. Clay and water sure make for a "fun" time. Been taking out some trees by hand and below ~1ft it's pretty clay here, not fun when it takes several days effort and it rains between them. Not only is it real slippy (fun when swinging that mattock) but you end up getting 1in heals and extra leg workout as well!
Hi... I'm afraid that your installation will make angry my uncle Youssef. Indeed he always advised me Vociferously to put the electric cable above the water pipe. 🤣🤣 Best wishes from Morocco.
I use denso tape on joints and metalwork, used extensively on oil rigs for connection protection and it works brilliantly. Nice job though but I would have slung the old turf and replaced or seeded.
Would love to have seen the pipe joining process and fall calcs in more detail. Also i’ve never really done any concreting - still to many unknowns for me to be brave enough to attempt
IMO the easiest way of calculating fall is using per cent because that's exactly centimetres of height difference over one metre (100 cm). I've had recommendations for either two our four per cent fall on drains. Too little fall and water pools in the pipe, too much and the water isn't able to flush solids properly, they just get stuck and the water rushes past them. So apparently even barely any fall is better than too much, at least that's what I've been told.
Very methodical everything has been well thought out. Check your IC always better to use the lower channel for the main run and I know everyone likes band seals but rigid connector (DC9) in this case is a better connection. I’ve had problems with band seals dropping and forming lips that cause blockages.
Another cracking video Andy,you never cease to amaze me with all your knowledge of different trades,I was lucky to be brought up in a family of tradesmen,plumbers joiners electricians brickies and myself a mechanical engineer,we all taught each other the basics of our own trades so we were all able to do all our own building and repair work which is sadly rare nowadays with the lack of apprenticeships but hopefully that will change,keep the videos coming,missing your tips videos but I know you have a lot on with the house,still don't see that GH baseball cap I sent you being worn but if your anything like me the biggest size my son does (56cm) is a wee bit tight on my head and I'm follically challenged like yourself, LOL only joking
After you made the first cut into that clay pipe with that little cutter, if you make another cut too the same depth on the unwanted part of the clay pipe and cut between the 2 as if your cutting a square out you can get your cutter to the bottom of the pipe from the top. i found out when i was doing the same thing with a little cutter.
Andy you did make me laugh when cutting the pipe, I thought won't be long before he needs a mask lol. I can highly recommend the evolution chop saw. That would go through that like butter. Nice job with concrete. Had similar with office build and 35 one day m, so thought next day I'll get up 6am and do some more, got two mixes done and hacked down after that. Buggered my two loads, but that is good old English weather lol. It looked a ball ache but job well done. It feels good once drains are working right. Got to do gully of mine soon. Mines 120 years old. Thanks for the videos. From Bill
Excellent what I was looking for got to replace a clay rain water pipe with plastic as I broke the old bell mouth clay trying to rod it going to install a plastic gully the attached with rubber flexible joint fantastic 👍
We have a shared gully in an 1930s house and apparently our neighbors said it had cracked. There seems no overflow anything like that. Can gully’s bring lines or does digging have settlement risks. Tough one!
Where you said the wall of the existing pipe was thicker than the new plastic pipe you can fit a stepped band seal which would help elevate the issue with different pipe wall thickness.
@@GosforthHandyman OK.I Like watching your progress on this project.Your videos are very informative and a great insight in how to overcome issues when stripping a property for renervation.
There's going to be some ditch digging for drain repair in my near future (in summer cos I'm not a daft sod ;) ) so it'd good to pick up some tips like attaching spacers to a level for an easy way to measure the fall 👍
If only all the builders in this country took as much care and pride in their work as you do. Also clear up the stuff from a skip that was blown all over our garden from next door! 😡😡 All it would have taken was a tarp & a few bricks, but no. We had to clear it up. 🤬
So glad I clicked on a plumbing video to watch someone dig a hole and skip all the plumbing. Also you seem to have created a big puddle at the side of the house that wasn't draining away.
Hi Andy, I’m just about to doing something similar but on a much smaller scale. I’m extending the main gully for the kitchen sink and bathroom waste water and wondered do I need a u bend as that is what is there currently on the original clay pipe.
In my experience, when concrete has had about 3-4 hours to go off there is no need to cover it from rain, in some cirmcunstances the rain can actually help strenghten the concrete by slowing down the chemical reacton. As for the connection between the PVC and clay pipe, I would say what you did was absolutley fine mate, however you can actually get female (PVC) to Male (Clay) pipe adapters which would probably be worth whyle using if you do decide to use it as a soil pipe in the future :)
@@GosforthHandyman For anyone looking in the future having watched this video the female to male connectors are fairly widely available online, just search for "110mm Polypipe Clay Socket to PVC Spigot Adaptor"
Proper, thoughtful, excellent job as always. Just would like your opinion on my situation: I have fitted the soil pipe underneath of my toilet (ground floor, old house). The toilet is in the middle position, the kitchen sink and the foul water gully are at opposite sides. In order to reduce the risk of blockage or easier maintenance, Can I connect the sink waste pipe to the toilet soil pipe underneath the floor directly, or should I make a way around (like 90 degree shape pipe work, much longer distance) to connect the sink to gully? Would love to hear your opinion, thanks.
I have a 1930's property and my gutter goes into a clay chamber that is smashed like yours and is causing damp. We don't have a man hole like you do. How do i find if it goes into the foul drain
I have bought a terraced property where it would seem that all the neighbours have removed their rain water down pipes so 4 attached roofs at the front drain into my gutter. I am the end terrace. My down pipe just kicks out at the bottom onto the ground! There is no drain. I am assuming that there would have been a soakaway years ago. There is a manhole cover 6' away on my property do I need a building inspector to come check or the waterboard to come tell me what needs to be done to connect to the drain?
@@GosforthHandyman I was told that you need inspection chambers at every change in direction for sewers and spaced at max 45m. Notice must also be given to Local Authorities prior to any repairs on sewers even where Building Regs don't apply because it's a repair. I suppose each Local Authority will have its own take on applying the Regs.
I've retained a note that at 30 degrees or less you don't need an access chamber. At my daughter's new built home the surrounding ground is covered with small access chambers .....
