When carrying out any development or renovation projects where wastewater is concerned, if you can connect to mains sewer this is generally the preferred course of action to take. Due to the 2020 General Binding rules outlining that you cannot be compliant if there is a mains sewer available to connect to within reasonable distance of your property our regular scope of works has taken a shift towards more pump stations, sewer connections and street works being undertaken.

If you have read our recent blog here about the variety of different options Klargester provide for pump stations you will understand why they are our ‘go to’ unit to install, the wide variety of options they have allows us to select the most appropriate unit to suit each application.

In June 2022 R A Dalton was invited to provide a quotation for the supply and installation of a suitable package pump station and an eventual connection to the mains sewer, this site in Yorkshire would require the raw sewage to be pumped approximately 220 metres with a lift of 4 metres to the new connection point.

As the site consisted of 6 no. 4-bedroom properties and 1 no. 2-bedroom property, this meant that the pump station had to be designed to not only handle the proposed daily flow but also account for the fact that to comply with Building control 24 hour storage would be required.

It is a common occurrence where a connection to mains sewer is involved that some work is likely to need to be carried out within the highway, the nature of the sewer network means that majority of higher capacity drains were installed along road sides with off branches feeding into them.

It is a rare occasion that sometimes the connection works are within private land but the majority of time the sewer is either within the road, verge or footpath.

This project was no different, to limit any unnecessary additional costs we proposed to use directional drilling to install the vast majority of pipework. This would leave the only sections to reinstate being the connection point, the launch pits and any parts where open excavation was required (usually due to services within the area).

Careful consideration at the time of planning identified the likelihood that some elements of the excavation work would need to be carried out in the access to a resident’s drive, therefore to ensure access was available at all times road places were procured.

Once the connection to Mains sewer had been completed and the thumbs up given from the water authority that they were happy with the works undertaken it was then time to backfill and reinstate the area as per (or better than) its original state, it is always important that this is done on a like for like basis to ensure that the material used is to the required standard.

With the connection to mains sewer now complete and all necessary rising main in site, we started with the pump station installation. As with any of our installations the unit is installed as per the manufacturer’s guidelines and in a full concrete surround, this is to ensure that the unit remains stable and resistant to any ground pressure, especially during the routine desludging process.

The final stage to any installation is the commissioning of the unit where the book is carefully passed from our installations department to servicing who then arrange for an engineer to attend site and make all the necessary final connections, set up the floats and pumps and just ensure the alarm system is functioning as required.