Here’s a recent story from Steve about how not everything always goes to plan on every build. Sometimes you just have to dig through 5 properties to connect a pipe….
There are many challenges faced when doing knockdown and rebuild projects around Sydney’s Northern Beaches. One common issue we face is how to get the stormwater runoff out of properties that are below street level. There are a number of ways we can work through this within the council’s set of guidelines. One of their most preferred methods is for a new home’s stormwater to be connected into the existing pipelines or run directly to the street. This can commonly be done by way of an easement through a lower neighbour. Sometimes these are already in place on the lands title and other times need to be newly created (which can be quite a process).
One current project of ours in Collaroy is below the street, but had the benefit of a stormwater drainage easement through the neighbouring properties, all the way down to a large council stormwater pipe. Our initial investigations found that there was an existing pipe in place, however, this old pipe was full of tree roots (some of which had grown big enough to fill the 80mm of the 100mm diameter of the pipe!). Council also deemed the sizing of this existing pipe too small to meet current standards, so a newer, larger 150mm pipe would have to be laid. No big deal. New pipes get laid all the time on building sites, right? Well, there was one catch with this job…the council stormwater pipe that we needed to connect to was five houses down the street! This meant that we had to dig a 100 metre long trench through five separate properties in order to install the new 150mm pipe.
