Magazine - January 2008

DRAIN ALERT !!

PLEASE, PLEASE make sure that anything you put down the toilet has either been eaten or drunk, and is accompanied by only a modest quantity of toilet tissue. All other items MUST be put in plastic bags and then placed in the proper containers.

A Nasty Surprise

On 12 th December it was discovered that the urinals in the disabled/gents/baby-changing toilets were overflowing when flushing, depositing clean water on the floor. Someone had already noticed it as paper towels had been placed around to stem the flow. The urinals are flushed by a hydraulic mechanism 24/7, so the problem was ongoing and should have been reported earlier. On Friday morning before the Shoppers’ Service on 14 th December, Roger Flint attempted to discover the source and rectify the problem. On raising the manhole cover outside it was found that foul water was backing up from a BLOCKAGE and professional help was called in on Saturday morning 15 th.

A Mystery

The engineer duly arrived, and it was fascinating (!) to watch his machine commence its subterranean passage along the drain under its own hydraulic power. After a considerable distance it stopped, without clearing an obstruction. The engineer announced that it had reached the next manhole. But where was that? Roger Flint and Tony Manning know the premises better than most, but had never noted any more manholes.

An Historic Discovery

When our church was originally built in the late 19 th century there was also a small school room where the current large hall now stands and the rest of the site was just grass. The buildings would have had a cesspit until 1932 when Watford Rural District Council provided main drainage in Abbots Langley and the drains would have been diverted.

The present additional buildings were erected in 1962, but there is no record of the layout of the drains. Roger then recalled that the last part to be built was the storage area around the hall porch, which was provided for the Breakspeare Pre-School some fifteen years ago. A diligent search showed a rectangular trap door in the wooden floor. We raised it to find underneath a concrete slab in the foundation and under that was revealed a shiny steel manhole cover which when lifted duly revealed the flooded chamber beneath.

Reparation

The drainage engineer’s machine was re-inserted and it began its second journey, but again came to a halt. It was the engineer, using his professional experience, who noticed the outline of yet another manhole cover – in the disabled ramp to the hall door built in “The Year of the Disabled” in 1982. Sadly this had been badly installed and partially concreted over and could not be raised, and at the time of writing we are awaiting the company’s “heavy gang” to smash it open and finally unblock our drains.

Cause and Effect

The debris so far revealed has shown the problem is almost certain to have been caused by paper towels, wipes and other “disposable” items having been flushed into the drainage pipes.

It has already cost over £200 and the final bill will approach £1,000, or virtually almost our entire share of the 2007 Rainbow Fair proceeds and thiswill inevitably mean delaying other planned works - in other words, ‘money down the drain’.

Resolution

When the blockage has been cleared our New Year Resolution is to resolve never to let this happen again and your cooperation is urgently required!!