DALROD have over 35 years of experience in helping schools and universities with their drainage requirements. We have seen it all over the years and have developed an extensive range of solutions to tackle any drainage problem, no matter the size or the scale.
The key to having healthy and free flowing pipes is to have regular maintenance carried out on your drainage system to prevent any nasty surprises from catching you out and costing a fortune. As budgets are squeezed more tightly continual maintenance of facilities can naturally be affected. However, if anything were to go wrong the costs of conducting emergency repairs are usually far greater than the cost of scheduled regular checks with a pre-planned maintenance agreement.
DALROD Leeds discovered just how important this was recently when they attended a local school to conduct a visual inspection.
What they found was a multitude of problems, all of which could be quickly fixed and sorted, however they had mostly gone under the radar until our visit.
Uncovering hidden issues.
Once on site it is easy to identify issues because they are things that we as drainage professionals encounter every day. They may not seem like potential problems or challenges in the eyes of that customer at that point in time, however, they can lead to wider problems if they remain unresolved.
A thorough inspection of the school facilities (both external and internal) during the holidays by DALROD Leeds uncovered several drainage areas requiring our attention.
- The ACO drains across the site were totally full and were causing flooding to the playground.
- There was no opening in the ACO drain to let water drain away – some concrete had to be chiseled away for this to happen.
- The majority of the gully’s were blocked with moss, lollypop sticks, tennis balls, or stones. Children often put things down the drains that they shouldn’t, but here this was due to covers being missing or broken so items could get inside.
- Several drain lids were rusted into place and need replacing.
- The external sinks were blocked and not draining away effectively.
- We also discovered some wet wipes blocking drains – this is a common cause of blockages in homes and businesses.
Due to the number of areas requiring attention it was decided that a full CCTV survey should be conducted to give a clear picture of the whole drainage system. Ahead of this this taking place lots of cleaning had to done, however, once the camera was down it found there was lots of root ingress from trees.
This is very common at schools and green sites where there are lots of outside space and trees, the roots can very quickly block the pipes. Something to watch out for!
Help is at hand.
Gary Price Director at DALROD Leeds said “it is really common for schools to accidentally neglect their drains. When issues are happening either outside or under the ground where they are out of sight then it can be easy to forget them. We can quickly and simply help to show a school where the problem areas lie and develop a plan to rectify them that suits both their budget and their timeframes.”
In the case of this school, that is exactly what we did. The major areas of concern were addressed immediately, with further remedial works scheduled for a later date.
If you would be interested in having us visit your site to visually inspect it or if you require any of our other drainage services within Leeds or the surrounding area, then please contact our team at DALROD on 0113 8816 119.
