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Sounds like you have what's called a bubble up sump/pit/camber.
Botched Agricultural Drainage Work First time poster here and fresh home owner with his first engagement with a local plumber job and I'm looking for some advice...
I recently engaged and had a plumber work on my exterior to install a channel grate + agricultural(agi) drainage system in order to protect my stump foundation, as after engaging with a few restumper on repacking/releveling, most of them said foundation is quite wet, with one refusing to do any work until I get the water issue sorted.
Fast forward to today, the drainage system has been completed but I'm very dubious on the quality of work and I feel like the tradie was giving me a lot of BS after I inspected the work with oddity detailed below:
- One of the agi drain was going into a newly installed stormwater pit that then have another solid pipe leading to the main stormwater drain, however the pit is actually HIGHER than both the agi and the pipe. When I inquired about this, one junior tradie told me "oh it'll work" to my face when I said "I thought water don't flow upward". Then his boss said this is a loop that'll direct to another T junction agi which then leads to a further pipe, but after the weekend, I uncovered the buried agi to check, and it was very low across all agi drain network, and water still pools around that area when I flushed the agi with water which he claim isn't the way to test agi...
- Almost all agi drains were buried with a layer of pebble rock on bottom, yet nothing on top, they layered mud/clay that was dug out directly on top of it, which doesn't make sense to me, as water would find path of least resistance and simply flow into the pebble below the drain I would thought, plus the fabric around the agi drain is already stained with mud, making them even less porous. One section of the drain was even crushed already, I suspect from the excavator, due to no protection from pebbles. Again, the boss insisted it'll work...
- The plastic channel grate in the end was held up on one side with a thick pad of silicon, which sits by a concrete pavement they cut into to install the grate. When I inquired why isn't this resealed/attached to a fresh cement filling, he said it's so the thermal expansion won't damage anything. I thought this was super odd as the other side of the grate is empty, it was only held from bottom and one side, yet he insisted...
- All storm pit was filled with cement up to the agi/grate/pipe line. This is very weird as I thought the pit was to capture potential backflow and silt. When I asked, he said it's for it to be held in place...
I'm still sorting through my photos, but I'll add them later.
At the moment I'm calling BS on all above claim, but I'm not quite sure... it's frustrating as I'm no expert, yet he's a licensed plumber according to VBA with all 5 star reviews on Google/FB...
Could I get an idea on whether he's BSing or I'm just being pedantic and he's correct?
I'm trying to gauge how botched the job is and seeing if its worth salvaging or perhaps getting inspection done and prepare for VCAT on compensation/refund which can get pricey with expert witness report to begin with. This is also difficult as I don't know any trustworthy/recommended plumber myself.
This whole scenario is stressing me out to the point I'm having real bad thought as this is the first tradie I engaged and I'm hoping to do more work on the house in the future too...
Welcome.
Sounds like you have what's called a bubble up sump/pit/camber.
An ag drain is designed to collect underground water (and maybe some surface water) so must have rubble /stone up to ground level or, at worst, 50 mm below the surface
and to work well, any ag drain should be at or below the level of the foundations it is draining.
You are correct, water does not run up hill so ANY storm drain must have an outlet below the level of the area to be drained, unless
it is a sealed storm drain (ag drains are not sealed) which uses the head/height of water in downpipes to force water out the end.
As for your write up, sorry, my old brain cannot comprehend all that without being there.
Pics may help, have to wait and see.
It is of no use to run an ag drain to a pit unless the outlet of the pit is below the ag drain level.
Any ag/surface drain should not be connected to existing storm drains bc there is every chance water will run back up the ag drain being forced to do so by the head/height of downpipes.
Hey, thanks for the replies.
Following is a plan of the proposed design with numbers showing the oddity I'm seeing.
1. This is the high storm pit I mentioned. Both agi and solid storm pipe drains out of this pit.
2. Most of the agis don't have rock/pebbles on the top, so it's just a layer of soil/mud. The photo here is part of a crushed agi after they drove the excavator out, it has missing fabrics wrapping too.
3. This is the agi that leads to nowhere. I initially wanted this part dry too, and don't mind having a part of the concrete cut to make way for agi to the other side, but this was the end result. When asked, he simply mentioned the end of the pipe is capped and it'll work.
4. The channel grate installed here is by making a cut out on the side of the concrete. Disregarding the incorrect cut/damage there, the grate itself is held up by a thick pad of caulk/silicon adjoining the concrete to the grate. He mentioned there's fresh concrete support at the bottom, but the whole things still wobbles/dent from the silicon joint when slightly stepped up.
5. The storm pit here is deformed. They seen to have cut first, measure later. It's also filled up with concrete (like the rest of the pit) to near the pipe/grate/drain, I don't know if this is common practice? I thought pit is suppose to collect silt and protect from overflow/backflow.
6. This is the beginning of the agi system. It's super shallow as you can see, basically on the same level as the concrete path. It's also only covered by mulch/dirt instead of pebbles/rocks.
I'm currently in the process of finding a plumbing inspector to write me a report on this setup and deciding whether I want him to fix + reimburse me on the report cost, or just full refund + reimburse on the report cost due to the botched job and I no longer trust him to do any work... (or maybe any tradies for that matters... probably better off if I DIY everything in future even if I'm willing to pay...)
A pit won’t protect from overflow in fact it offers a location for overflow to occur, backflow prevention can be achieved with a pit if the entry point is higher than the outlet.It's also filled up with concrete (like the rest of the pit) to near the pipe/grate/drain, I don't know if this is common practice? I thought pit is suppose to collect silt and protect from overflow/backflow.
Pits are often partially filled with concrete, one reason is to weight it down otherwise they can float to the surface, another reason is if not filled to the bottom of the outlet then water is retained and can be a breading ground for mozzies the trade off is lack of silt collection.
A number of the other points appear to be an issue and you are correct water does not flow uphill, from past experience some plumbers still do not understand this basic rule.
If the plumber is unwilling to listen and discuss the concerns then getting it inspected and a report is the correct approach, I hope you have not paid in full.
I am still fixing all the stuff ups our plumbers made during our renovation.
That's for clarifying the concreting.Originally Posted by droog
Unfortunately I have, this is my first time engaging a tradie from zero experience... One of the inspector I engaged for a quote also immediately said he hope I haven't paid in full yet.
The plumber did offer to either fix part of the issue (eg. channel grate and some minor things like pit-pipe seal), or 55% of the quoted amount back, stating 45% was material cost. I haven't taken either as I have a feeling a lot of the agi/pits are not salvageable...
this pretty much says to me he knows its going to be a pain in the @@@@ to fix take this and we'll go our separate ways.
Remember if you don't sin, then Jesus died for nothing
Yea... I have this feeling as well when he offered this out of the box.
Getting an inspector to come check it out on Wednesday now. So latest for report might be Friday depend on how quick the inspector is.
It's been about a week and a half since the work is completed, does anyone know whether there's like, time frame for dispute on tradie matters?
Anything I might have to look out for when doing the inspection with inspector?
So the inspection report showed compliance issue with the depth of the pipe as well as angle of the pipes not actually directing water away until it reaches a certain level and I communicated with the plumber again asking for refund as I'll rather try and remove/fix all of this myself since I'm going to avoid working with tradies as much as I can from now on.
He came back with proposal to refund in 6 installments with first installment came through so far. Is this normal? Any legal issues or gotchas I might need to watch out for when doing so?
I'm thinking of setting formal due dates per installments and if a certain amount of time passed without receiving, I'll start preparing for VBA/VCAT/Consumer Affair Victoria.
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