We've just moved into a brand new house (well, 3 weeks ago) and today a
van delivering some ceramic tiles drove over one of the inspection
chamber covers on our drive and it shattered, the (plastic?) rim also
looks compromised.

It's a round cover, looks like metal.

In the snagging list we have already raised the issue of 'wobbly'
covers with the developers. Would these 'wobbly' inspection chamber
covers weaken the whole thing and make this kind of incident more
likely to happen? The rims of some of the inspection chambers also
have some movement in them, it's not just the covers. The drive is
gravel, quite coarse pebble-like stuff.

I've never heard of these covers breaking like this before, does it
seem like something the house developers should fix and are the other
ones at risk of a similar thing happening?

I don't know whether to call someone out to fix this straight away or
do it myself and then try to get the money back from the developers..
we have placed a pallet over the hole and alerted our neighbours to the
situation (the drive is shared). I am worried that doing it myself
will affect the warranty and/or that the developers may accuse me of
causing some other problem by 'interfering'. There is some gravel
visible in the hole, I am also worried this could cause a blockage.

We are already having a nightmare with the developers regarding the
other snags and I am dreading the inevitable confrontation about it.
Buying this new house has been such a horrible experience I can
honestly say I would not have gone ahead if I'd known. They are a
small developer, not one of the large ones.

Also, how can I work out whether this is sewerage or other drainage, is
there a health hazard if it is sewerage?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

wrote in message
oups.com...
We've just moved into a brand new house (well, 3 weeks ago) and
today a
van delivering some ceramic tiles drove over one of the inspection
chamber covers on our drive and it shattered, the (plastic?) rim
also
looks compromised.

It's a round cover, looks like metal.

In the snagging list we have already raised the issue of 'wobbly'
covers with the developers. Would these 'wobbly' inspection chamber
covers weaken the whole thing and make this kind of incident more
likely to happen? The rims of some of the inspection chambers also
have some movement in them, it's not just the covers. The drive is
gravel, quite coarse pebble-like stuff.

I've never heard of these covers breaking like this before, does it
seem like something the house developers should fix and are the
other
ones at risk of a similar thing happening?

I don't know whether to call someone out to fix this straight away
or
do it myself and then try to get the money back from the
developers..
we have placed a pallet over the hole and alerted our neighbours to
the
situation (the drive is shared). I am worried that doing it myself
will affect the warranty and/or that the developers may accuse me of
causing some other problem by 'interfering'. There is some gravel
visible in the hole, I am also worried this could cause a blockage.

We are already having a nightmare with the developers regarding the
other snags and I am dreading the inevitable confrontation about it.
Buying this new house has been such a horrible experience I can
honestly say I would not have gone ahead if I'd known. They are a
small developer, not one of the large ones.

Also, how can I work out whether this is sewerage or other drainage,
is
there a health hazard if it is sewerage?

Thanks in advance for any advice.


Drain covers come in many guises. There are pedestrian service ones
and traffic service, and probably many shades in between.If it is in a
driveway, presumably it 'should' be a vehicle rated one, but is it?
What ever it is, demonstrably it is not 'fit for purpose' so you
should call the developer to account. As for foul sewerage or surface
drainage, get someone to flush the toilets while you watch the hole -
mind it will take a while if it's a long driveway.

AWEM

wrote:
We've just moved into a brand new house (well, 3 weeks ago) and today a
van delivering some ceramic tiles drove over one of the inspection
chamber covers on our drive and it shattered, the (plastic?) rim also
looks compromised.

It's a round cover, looks like metal.

In the snagging list we have already raised the issue of 'wobbly'
covers with the developers. Would these 'wobbly' inspection chamber
covers weaken the whole thing and make this kind of incident more
likely to happen? The rims of some of the inspection chambers also
have some movement in them, it's not just the covers. The drive is
gravel, quite coarse pebble-like stuff.

I've never heard of these covers breaking like this before, does it
seem like something the house developers should fix and are the other
ones at risk of a similar thing happening?

I don't know whether to call someone out to fix this straight away or
do it myself and then try to get the money back from the developers..
we have placed a pallet over the hole and alerted our neighbours to the
situation (the drive is shared). I am worried that doing it myself
will affect the warranty and/or that the developers may accuse me of
causing some other problem by 'interfering'. There is some gravel
visible in the hole, I am also worried this could cause a blockage.

We are already having a nightmare with the developers regarding the
other snags and I am dreading the inevitable confrontation about it.
Buying this new house has been such a horrible experience I can
honestly say I would not have gone ahead if I'd known. They are a
small developer, not one of the large ones.

Also, how can I work out whether this is sewerage or other drainage, is
there a health hazard if it is sewerage?

Thanks in advance for any advice.


Maybe they used the cover that's rated for foot traffic only. With any
luck the stronger one will be the same size.
Either way, if the frames aren't supported properly from underneath,
there will be wobbles. I imagine the solid material (brick, concrete or
whatever) should extend 50mm or so into the opening to give the frame
adequate support, but I don't know what the regs might be.

On Thu, 4 Jan 2007 14:59:33 -0000, Andrew Mawson wrote:

Drain covers come in many guises. There are pedestrian service ones
and traffic service, and probably many shades in between.If it is in a
driveway, presumably it 'should' be a vehicle rated one, but is it?

If the OP still has the bits I'd expect to find a makers name or mark and
some numbers. Wander of to makers web site or google and see what turns
up. In a drive it should be at least light or medium traffic. That is
suitable to take the load imposed by a car or small lorry delivering
things...

What ever it is, demonstrably it is not 'fit for purpose' so you
should call the developer to account.

Agreed, being able to show what they fitted was under rated strengthens
the case against the developer.

I wouldn't be particulary worried if it is a foul drain, at least in the
sort term. Unless if blocks (try not to let too much of the gravel go
down) the mucky stuff will simply flow past out of harms way. The hole in
the ground is a bigger danger.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On 4 Jan, 14:26, wrote:
We've just moved into a brand new house (well, 3 weeks ago) and today a
van delivering some ceramic tiles drove over one of the inspection
chamber covers on our drive and it shattered, the (plastic?) rim also
looks compromised.

They don't build things like they used to. I am always noticing plastic
water stopcock covers near where I live that are broken, generally on
new builds or where work has been carried out. The one on my house
still has the date 1903 on it and I reckon it has got another couple of
hundred years life left in it. Expect we will have water meters fitted
long before then though!

Andrew Mawson used his keyboard to write :
Drain covers come in many guises. There are pedestrian service ones
and traffic service, and probably many shades in between.If it is in a
driveway, presumably it 'should' be a vehicle rated one, but is it?
What ever it is, demonstrably it is not 'fit for purpose' so you
should call the developer to account. As for foul sewerage or surface
drainage, get someone to flush the toilets while you watch the hole -
mind it will take a while if it's a long driveway.

Read the spec. with a pinch of salt...

I bought and fitted two covers rated 3 ton, they permanently deformed
under the weight of one wheel of my car, the very first time I drove
over them. Supplier had to swap them FOC for 5 ton rated ones, which
luckily fitted in the same frame.

--

Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

"Harry Bloomfield" wrote in message
...
Andrew Mawson used his keyboard to write :
Drain covers come in many guises. There are pedestrian service
ones
and traffic service, and probably many shades in between.If it is
in a
driveway, presumably it 'should' be a vehicle rated one, but is
it?
What ever it is, demonstrably it is not 'fit for purpose' so you
should call the developer to account. As for foul sewerage or
surface
drainage, get someone to flush the toilets while you watch the
hole -
mind it will take a while if it's a long driveway.

Read the spec. with a pinch of salt...

I bought and fitted two covers rated 3 ton, they permanently
deformed
under the weight of one wheel of my car, the very first time I drove
over them. Supplier had to swap them FOC for 5 ton rated ones, which
luckily fitted in the same frame.

--

Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk


Maker would probably claim that the 3 ton is 'evenly distributed' -
same way floor loadings are quoted rather than the 'point load' - or
infact fat line of contact with a tyre

AWEM

Thanks for all the replies.

Yes, you are (all) right, the cover appears to be rated for pedestrian
use, it has the following embossed onto it: 'EN124 A15', also some
other characters below but hard to make out and didn't seem to be a
manufacturers name. I only know this cos there is another identical
cover nearby, we have 4 or 5 covers on our drive, not all the same,
some hepworth some this other unidentifiable type.

So, I spoke to someone in tech support at 'hepworth' who was extremely
helpful, he explained about the EN124 ratings and also mentioned that
when the polypropelene hole is fitted it ought to be properly supported
by concrete and the rim of the hole should be embedded so that it does
not bear the weight anything bearing down on it.

The developers will surely take responsability now, have not been able
to get hold of them since reporting the problem initially. Will also
speak to the building regs 'officer' tomorrow just to make sure, these
ratings are def covered in the regs too.

Cheers, jb.

Andrew Mawson wrote:

Maker would probably claim that the 3 ton is 'evenly distributed' -
same way floor loadings are quoted rather than the 'point load' - or
infact fat line of contact with a tyre


We bought '5 ton' rated block an tackle from a yacht shop to remove an
engine..

It bent lifting the car front (about a ton) off the floor when the
engine stuck.


One feels the 5 tons was 'guaranteed to snap' rather than 'won't
permanently deform'

AWEM

In article ,
Harry Bloomfield writes:
I bought and fitted two covers rated 3 ton, they permanently deformed
under the weight of one wheel of my car, the very first time I drove
over them. Supplier had to swap them FOC for 5 ton rated ones, which
luckily fitted in the same frame.

I bought a 3 ton one to replace a broken one in the alley round to
the back of the house. It was galvanised pressed steel, IIRC. It
let out a laud "poing-ping" when you stepped on it. Took it back and
got a proper cast iron one (can't remember if it was 7 or 10 ton).
That was much better, and not much more expensive (although I also
had to buy lifting handles for it).

--
Andrew Gabriel

On Jan 4, 2:26 pm, wrote:
We've just moved into a brand new house (well, 3 weeks ago) and today a
van delivering some ceramic tiles drove over one of the inspection
chamber covers on our drive and it shattered, the (plastic?) rim also
looks compromised.


It's grey cast iron, which is brittle & can be broken with a good crack
from a hammer. Old baths, guttering and such can be broken into small
pieces quite easily.

There were some in my drive, paved over by the previous owner, dopey
old gentleman. Drains marked on deeds, but not the manholes. They were
Ok for 7 or 8 years until there was a loud bang and the front wheel of
the car dropped into one. Fun and games followed in jacking it out and
retrieving the debris before it caused a blockage in the stream of
****e below.

I replaced it with a pressed galvanized steel cover, that fotunately
fitted the existing frame, so i chucked the new plastic frame. I relaid
the paving. OK for another couple of years until Thames Water's
Contractors showed up, wanting access to clear a blockage upstream of
me; it hadn't affected me at all. Swore they'd make good & relay the
paving; lying *******s. They even told the neighbours, whose garden was
flooded with ****e that I'd blocked the drains. If you've got public
drains crossing your property take note.

I eventually replaced the paved over covers with steel recessed trays &
inset paving. The depth of these makes them very rigid.A skip lorry
parked on them whilst lifting a full skip without any visible damage.

The ones on roads are ductile/spheroidal graphite (think it's the same
stuff) cast iron, which was invented around post-WW2 time and is much
stronger than grey cast. British Gas have been having huge problems
with failures in their ductile CI medium pressure gas mains, I think
the problem was stress corrosion.

On Jan 5, 10:56 pm, "Aidan" wrote:
It's grey cast iron, which is brittle & can be broken with a good crack
from a hammer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_iron

The ones on roads are ductile/spheroidal graphite (think it's the same
stuff) cast iron, which was invented around post-WW2 time and is much
stronger than grey cast. British Gas have been having huge problems
with failures in their ductile CI medium pressure gas mains, I think
the problem was stress corrosion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ductile_iron