Up the creek, without a paddle
So, whoever said demolition would be easy, obviously has not visited this site. The newest problem that we have faced involves a nearby hotel (a key stakeholder in the development), a blocked foul drainage pipe and an excavation full of yesterdays dinner!
Last week there was a distinct smell of faeces in a nearby pedestrian street. The PM mentioned this to the Construction Manager and asked him to investigate. The next day, said CM was moved to a new job (polite way of sacking someone in the civilian industry). Therefore the investigation never happened.
Yesterday morning the hotel manager contacted us through the liaison manager for the project to inform us of a drain that was backing up just outside of the hotels loading bay. The hotel is located uphill from the demolition site and the previously mentioned pedestrian street (a pedestrian street that was created as a temporary diversion at the start of this demolition).
The hotel loading bay – In the background the drainage SC
Carillion, being the forward leaning, considerate constructors that they are, offered to investigate. This consisted of a drainage sub-contractor opening a drain cover on the pedestrian street and saying “Oh yeah, that’s full of Sh*t”. They had already identified the bottom of the private drainage run, that was clear, so the problem lay somewhere in between the two. They are coming back this morning to try to jet the blockage and get the flow moving.
Three tanker loads have been removed from the drain to buy some time.
First tanker from Burntwood SC
The cause of the blockage is yet to be established, although we think it was probably the SC who installed the pedestrian street and potentially damaged some of the pipes or left debris inside. However, previous drainage reports from prior to the street being installed, all mention debris in the system.
Votes on causes please:
- Debris from street construction.
- The hotel has eventually blocked it with their own fat/waste from kitchens and toilet paper from rooms.
- The flow has reduced to a level below that required to keep the drains clear. The hotel is the top of the run and it’s occupancy has dropped since demolition started, the office block that also connects to the drain is now unoccupied.
- Other.
In other news:
Laura is pregnant again – due mid November.
I have built a huge deck in my Garden – due May bank holiday!
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 
Congratulations on the news!
Chris, congratulations on the impending arrival; just in time for your thesis writing😳 Having spent large periods of my cone head career staring into pungent smelling blocked sewers, my money is on debris in the sewer or a collapse of the pipe at some point.
The debris that was removed was very sludgy and not actually chunks of anything substantial. It required jetting and then filled with the impending poo-nami pretty quickly. We are awaiting a CCTV crew to investigate.
Congratulations Chris, lovely news.
With regards to your blockage, are you looking to find the cause mostly to enable the repair or is it to justify charging the sub contractor for the costs of the repair?
My guess would be that the cause is due to more than a few from your list, so maybe you need an ‘all of the above’ on your list.
Regardless I assume that it would be extremely difficult to pin down the actual cause.
We have taken this on out of good faith at the moment, the hotel have put up with a lot from us and the manager is very amicable. We have hosted breakfasts etc in there before now. The aim of finding the cause is to prevent it happening in the future – and if it is our fault to fix it.
It will be difficult to pin down what caused it, unless there is a collapse, because when the poo-nado arrived, it took anything substantial down the pipe with it.
Thank you all for the congratulations, by opinion poll, we are considering calling it Baby McBabyface!
A strong name Chris, a name like that will ensure they can handle themselves in the playground and will make wise choice for a future high court judge if called to the bar. Given the lack of debris my money is on baby wipes, kitchen fat and lack of flow. Congratulations on Number 2!
OK, so after a thorough investigation the cause of the blockage remains unknown.
The drain robot could only get about 5 m down the pipe before it got stuck in silt and fat (suspect number 1). The drainage engineer removed some debris (suspect number 2) from the empty manhole and jetted upflow about 3 m. This created a horrendous flow of sewerage that filled the manhole we were jetting from (this cleared in about 5 minutes).
The drainage engineers had been asked to do a full cleanse of the system by Carillion. However at 5pm on Thursday night I was the only Carillion representative left standing with them. I made the call that the flow, that is now moving, should clear the silt in the pipes and with any luck the drains shouldn’t need cleaning. I made this call as a full clean would require shutting a road a several pedestrian routes.
I recommended to the PM that the pipes be left as they are, with a monthly or fortnightly inspection. I also ensured that the repair to the damaged pipe be made a priority.
That’s an impressive level of stakeholder engagement. Any idea what the cost associated with all the works will be? My experience of CCL was that they were very reluctant to spend money (never enough bins on site as an example), but perhaps the job I was on had been bought.
Rich,
I believe the final bill is in the region of a few thousand. There are still plans to do more, which I think is unnecessary until a full repair has been completed on the upstream pipe. The flow is currently moving, and with any luck, it will clear the silt out of the system.