Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Sep 11, 2011 10:09 am Hi folks We are in Melbourne and have a very rare situation (for Melbourne) whereby we don't have any connection to council stormwater drains. All stormwater remains on our property and our current system is ancient and totally inadequate and we flood whenever we have any decent rain. We have been researching various methods of dealing with this (soak wells or agi pipe being one option, but whilst these are totally suitable for Perth/sandy soils, they are not as suitable over here where soil is less sandy, and have been advised (without testing) that our area may not be suitable for soak wells). Anyway.... council advised us our best option might be to connect out to the street (and it then just runs down the street to the drains). But they said we would need to check the fall of our land and whether the pipes would have enough gradient to run forward to the street. My question is.... even if there isn't enough gradient, or by chance the land slightly slopes the other way, is this something that can be resolved with a pump?? Or does the slope of the land dictate if it is possible or not and having a pump (or not) won't help the situation?? We will get plumbers out to advise but just wondering if anyone can tell us if a pump will solve any problem we might face with gradient??? Thanks, HHCIB Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 2Sep 11, 2011 2:39 pm A pump can help. The issue is the amount of water you will have to pump. Assuming the block drains towards the rear you will need to pump the water a height of at least half a metre above the discharge point at the street. This is the pump head. You then have to decide how much you need to pump. If its raining at say 25mm an hour (heavy storm ) and your roof area is 100m2 you will need a pump that can can pump 2,500 Litres an hour. You could still have problems if the power is out during the storm. Another solution is to have a charged or pressure drainage system which still works by gravity The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 3Sep 11, 2011 3:50 pm Hi Bashworth . We know our next door neighbour managed to connect his storm water to the road and we think it is without the use of a pump. Because we are right next door, we are hoping our block has the same/similar fall and so that a pump may also not be required, or if it is, won't have to pump 'much' or 'hard' or whatever the terminology is, but you get my point. Does that make a difference to anything?? The pump head?? Hmmmm..... hadn't thought of a power outage. Every where we turn there are problems. Just not sure how we can solve this problem with complete peace of mind. Not sure what charged or pressure drainage systems are. Can you clarify or point me to somewhere that has more info on this. (I will google, but if you know of somewhere in particular I should look). Feeling a bit deflated - and a tad defeated. Thanks again Bashworth. HHCIB Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 4Sep 11, 2011 4:30 pm Pumps are rated by there ability to pump hard. The way this is stated is to say they can pump so many litres/sec against a certain head. Thats how high they have to lift the water. Charged systems are usually used to fill rainwater tanks but can be used to move water to the front of a property. This link shows a charged system for a rainwater tank http://www.pic.vic.gov.au/resources/doc ... _tanks.pdf The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 5Sep 12, 2011 11:27 am A lot of Councils also don't allow pump out systems for the very reason that if the power goes off you or your neighbor gets flooded. Some even are not that keen on charged systems unless there are no alternatives. You should upload a quick sketch showing your gutter height,kerb height and distance from your house. When I was building we did a couple of jobs like yours where we incorporated the pipes from the gutters into a side boundary retaining wall then out to the street. As long as you have more than about 1 metre fall from your gutters to the street you should have enough fall for a charged system to work. Stewie Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 6Sep 12, 2011 1:15 pm Get the height of your street (at it's lowest point near your property) and the heigh tof your gutters. The survey plan should show you the height of the street and your plans will show you the height of your gutters. Figures are in metres AHD. As long sas your gutters are higher than the street gutter, you'll be able to do soemthing. You can also run somewhat down the street in front of your neighbour's place, if you know what I mean. Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 7Sep 14, 2011 7:00 pm Casa 2 is correct, in our old house our block was about a meter below the road so in order to get rid of stormwater we cut the downpipes off higher than the road level and replaced it with PVC pipe and layed a buried the pipe out to the kerb. This is called a flooded drain, so when it rains the water flows to the road but there is always water in the pipe, so the next time it rains the water laying in the pipe is pushed out. We lived with this system for 20+ years with no problems. I hope this helps. Gandj Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 8Sep 15, 2011 9:23 pm Thanks for the replies everyone - very much appreciated. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by the issue at hand (again). Every now and then we get the energy to tackle it and we start making decisions about how to tackle it, then we hit road blocks. So at the moment, we are just trying to gather as much info and resources as possible. Bashworth, I haven't had a chance to even check out that link yet - but I certainly will. I need to understand more about these 'charged systems' because currently I am still 99% in the dark on that. Stewie D, I'll ring the council again just to be sure, but I'm pretty sure it was her (the chief engineer) that suggested the pump (??). She certainly suggested running the storm water to the street and I'm sure she mentioned pumping if necessary but will clarify before we look at this option seriously in case they do have issues with pumps. I like the idea of a retaining wall. Well, I don't necessarily love the idea of having to build a retaining wall and how it might look etc etc, but I love that it creates an option. Not sure what you mean by 'at least 1m fall from your gutters to the street'.... the gutters are definitely at least 1m higher than ground level/street level - isn't everyone's ( obviously not, but shows you how much I know). Or do you not mean the roof gutters but the bottom of the down pipe?? If so, no, not a metre. Casa2 - we are an old/existing house so we don't have extensive plans. Having said that, the council did kindly forward us (for free I might add ) all of our plans on their file so when the previous owner submitted their building/extension plans there was all sorts of drawings. Would it be in those?? Again, not sure what 'as long as your gutters are higher than the street gutter'... my interpretation of 'gutter' must be different because to me, 'gutters' are what run along the roof/eaves line... so naturally they are higher than the street (well, not in all cases, unless we lived at the bottom of a hill, but not the case - we are fairly level with the street - give or take - but which way - is the question). HI Gandj - this sounds similar to what my DP keeps talking about.. that the water sits in it and it will just get pushed out next rain. Maybe it is the kind of system next door have set up and he got it from talking to the neighbour?? Not that our block is 1m below road (like I said, unless I have my visions of where to measure from etc are all skewed), but just curious, how did you 'bury' the pipe out to the road if the pipe had to sit slightly higher than the road. Or did it sit 'level' and this is what a flooded drain system is about?? (I was just worried when DP was talking about this method that it might flood backwards if not angled towards the road). Thanks again for all the replies folks. After thinking about soak pits, I am now thinking trying to get to the road might be the way to go.... if we can do it (although I say that, then I go back to soak pits/agi pipe, then I come full circle back to the road ). Any further clarification on my queries would be greatly appreciated. HHCIB Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 9Sep 15, 2011 9:48 pm Yep, the gutters are the bits that run along the roof/eave line. Good to hear they are well above the street gutters. I'll try to explain a charged system. Imagine your downpipes run from your roof gutters down to the bottom of the house, underground along a pipe and then to the street gutter. Imagine also that the bottom of the underground pipe section is lower than the street gutter. When it rains, the underground pipes will get filled with water ("charged"), but eventually the water level will rise enough that the water will flow out to the street gutter. When it stops raining, there will always be soem water left in the underground pipe, but this is no problem. Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 10Sep 16, 2011 9:31 am I believe it looks a bit like this. I didn't understand it either until I saw that picture. Metricon Riva 33 - http://herlihy-riva.blogspot.com Site start 15/03/2010 - Handover 23/12/2010 9 months and 8 days (284 calendar days) from site start to handover Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 11Sep 16, 2011 10:52 am Yes, that's it exactly bther1. Some houses do get built on the lower side of the street with their floor level well below street level and this is the only way for them to discharge their roofwater to the councils kerb and guttering. Most councils will actually give you a lot of leeway in this regard as they all want your rainwater to flow to the street via non-mechanical ( gravity system) means if possible. We have been allowed to build up the nature strip to hide the drain lines too on one job we did. The only other thing I would suggest is an inspection opening at the lowest point so you can flush the pipe out occasionally to get rid of sediment buildup. Stewie Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 12Sep 16, 2011 8:43 pm Casa2, btherl & Stewie D, Thanks so much for all this info.... that has really helped and I think I'm getting my head around this now. Can I ask, just to clarify an earlier post (I think from you Stewie D??).... so is a 'charged' system the same as a 'flooded' system (I think you mentioned a flooded system in one of your earlier posts Stewie D? Just want to make sure there isn't another system out there to investigate). Thanks again. Thinking this could be the way to go. I've just got to make sure the council would be OK with it. Neighbour reckons some councils (or some 'authorities' (I dunno, building surveyors, engineers, whatever) don't like this system because they don't like the idea of water sitting in the pipes. Hope our council doesn't have an issue with it. They said we'd have to apply for a permit and the plumber would have to have public liability insurance etc (as he would be working on the nature strip/kurb), but I wonder if the council expect to see drawn plans of what is involved (I bet they do ). Thanks again folks, given us much more to go away and think about. If you think of anything to add, please do so - it's all helping. HHCIB Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 13Sep 17, 2011 11:53 am Yeah same system - different name. All the plumbers we've used call it charged but others call it something else. One of the reasons some authorities like councils don't like them or any other system where certain amounts of water remain in the pipes is that mossies and other critters can potentially breed in them. We have had some drainage sumps like that in the past so we have replaced them for ones that drain 100% rather than leave the last 100mm of water or so in the sump. Your draughtsman should be able to knock up a quick annotated scale drawing in elevation showing the pipes and levels very easily once you give him all the necessary info. Stewie Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 14Sep 19, 2011 10:06 am Ugggh, after feeling like I was making progress, I called the council again this morning to ask about the 'charged' system - and they don't allow them. They do allow pumps - but apparently you have to have two (so that if one fails, you have back up). If there is a blackout, you have to have adequate 'storage' for collection on your property but I'm still in the dark as to what that is (she said she'd email me the info but then we got sidetracked, I'll have to follow that up later). So now she recommends we get a drainage engineer to consult on our options and draw plans up for a plumber. Or, she suggests we still try and check if our soil is adequate for soak pits in the backyard (we did our own little drainage test and we didn't think it was adequate but she said maybe we didn't dig deep enough). I feel like we are going around and around in circles. Oh why does this all have to be so hard . HHCIB Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 15Sep 19, 2011 10:44 am Quote: Ugggh, after feeling like I was making progress, I called the council again this morning to ask about the 'charged' system - and they don't allow them. They do allow pumps - but apparently you have to... Another example of how complicated councils makes your life.... Why on earth would they not choose the simpler non-mechanical alternative ? Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 17Sep 19, 2011 1:53 pm I know!! She said they consider them a health hazard/breeding ground for mozzies etc. Having said that, they don't require submitted plans of what we are proposing, so ultimately they wouldn't know if we did a charged system or used a pump. But.... am now concerned that with two little kids, maybe we should steer clear of anything that is considered a health hazard or breeding ground. Or is there a way you can 'maintain' that aspect of it?? Looks like our best chance is going to be if our block actually slopes to the front and no pump will be required. Or.... doing the retaining wall system might be another option?? Does anyone know a way of checking for any slope ourselves?? Or does it require a proper leveller 'thing' (I think a plumber called it a dumpy??? but he was going to charge $400 to check it) HHCIB Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 18Sep 19, 2011 4:15 pm ^+2 It's probably been mentioned here on the forums somewhere but you can get pretty close levels with a water level - clear plastic tubing with water inside it and find the right heights that way. http://www.ehow.com/how_2001883_make-water-level.html or http://www.buildeazy.com/fp_waterlevel.html Way cheaper than $400 that's for sure and probably near enough to draw up some scale drawings. You can use this to do all your landscaping work too. I've also heard of guys getting around a similar problem of having the pipes open at each end allowing mossies to breed by installing one way spring loaded flaps that let the water flow and as soon as it stops raining the flaps spring shut again. Never done it myself though and I'm unsure whether your council would allow it as a workable substitute for a pump-out system. If you have to get a hydraulics engineer involved you are going to start spending $$$ for drawings. Stewie Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 19Sep 19, 2011 6:22 pm I'm actually in the process of subdividing and my land flows away from the street frontage which means I have to have an easement along the neighbouring property where the storm water management system sits, this has to be planned and submitted to Council for them to approve, and then check once completed before they allow me to have my title Lots of time and effort as Im having trouble finding someone to quote the work let alone DO the work. I queried the scenario with the pump but was told this is quite expensive and speically to maintain and when power goes out what happens? Barossa Bubbles Building own design Fairmont Homes viewtopic.php?f=31&t=51265&hilit=Barossa+Bubbles Roof on-bricks next Re: Pumping stormwater to street -question?? 20Sep 19, 2011 7:30 pm I's just a drainage pipe. Any decent drainer should be able to give you a quote in 10 minutes flat. That is, along as you have the relevant approved scale drawings to the councils specs showing falls , sizes, depths, boundary setbacks, distances etc. In both cases for HHCIB and BB above you should whip up a quick sketch for us showing heights of your gutters, ground levels , street gutter and distances so we can comment further otherwise we are really still guessing. Stewie Hi all. I'm thinking of installing an electric gate in front of this street front villa (link below). The gate would be between the bush on the left and the letter box on… 0 2778 Thanks! 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