Signs across a block
Where a block showsits faults.
A block does not complain from one place. These are the spots that show it first.
01
One flat complains and the rest are fine
When one flat has water coming back and the rest drain normally, the fault sits in its own branch or where that branch joins the shared run, not in the shared run itself.
02
Water standing in the car park
A car park gully sits below street level, so any narrowing shows at once as a pool on the concrete. The cause we see most is grit and dust carried down by car washing and settled in the pot.
03
The tank water changes in summer
A roof tank sitting in the sun heats up, the water standing in it changes in taste and smell, and sediment can settle at the bottom. Residents complain about the water rather than the drains, and the cause is above them.
The work in short
What we cover ina block.
Service
Water and drainage network upkeep for a whole building
Where it applies
Residential blocks, complexes and buildings with several entrances
The points
Inspection chambers, manholes, car park gullies, roof tanks and pumps
Method
Chambers opened in order, drain rods, and a tanker when suction is needed
Coverage
All six governorates and the areas inside them
The round
From the roofto the car park.
We start at the top and work down, because what happens above shows up below.
We start at the tank and pump
We open the tank, look at the water and any sediment in the base, and watch the pump while it runs, because weak supply in the flats usually starts here and not at the tap.
We move to the vertical stacks
The stack collecting the bathrooms of the flats above one another reads from the access points and the landing gullies. We listen for water falling at its normal pace, or hesitating before it goes.
We open the yard chambers in order
We open from the chamber nearest the building and move towards the outlet, reading the level in each channel. A full chamber followed by an empty one puts the stoppage exactly between the two.
We finish at the car park
We lift the car park gully grating, clear what has settled in the pot, and check the outlet still sits above the standing water line, because that seal is what keeps odour out of the car park.
Inside a block
Reading a blocktop to bottom.
A building is a vertical network and a horizontal one. The vertical part is the stacks that gather the bathrooms and kitchens of the flats sitting above one another and drop them down. The horizontal part is the run that travels through the yard from chamber to chamber and out. Most of what keeps repeating in a block happens where the two meet, because water arriving fast hits a run that moves slowly.
Beside the stack runs a second pipe for venting, carried up to the roof. Its job is to balance the pressure inside the stack so water dropping from a flat above does not pull the seal out of a trap in the flat below. When it blocks, odour starts rising through traps that have nothing wrong with them, and the answer is clearing a vent rather than clearing a drain.
Basement car park gullies are their own case. Under the grating sits a pot holding standing water, with the outlet in its side wall above that water line, and it is the water that blocks the smell. Car washing carries grit and dust down, it settles in the pot and narrows the outlet a little at a time, and the first heavy rain or wash shows as water standing on the concrete.
The tank and the pump are read together. A pump running more than it used to, with the tank level dropping while nobody is using water, means a leak, either in the tank itself or in the pipes leaving it. That is not solved by clearing a drain. It is solved by locating the leak first, so any breaking is at one point in the building rather than across several floors.
External links for referenceKuwait Municipality (requirements for buildings and complexes)
Asked about blocks
Asked aboutblock work.
Because standing water in the shared line leaves through the lowest opening it can find, usually the ground floor gully or its toilet. The upper flats still drain, since their water is still falling under gravity, and the stoppage is below them rather than at them.
Usually from a dry floor gully on the landing, or from a blocked vent stack. A dry gully loses the water seal that holds the line's smell down, and the answer is water put back into it regularly, plus fixing whatever let it dry out.
Most often it is silt in the gully pot under the grating. Grit and dust from washing cars settles and narrows the outlet, so water sits on top of the grating instead of going through. We lift the grating, empty the pot and check the outlet.
Yes, manhole cover installation is ours. A cover and the frame it sits in have to be the same shape and size as each other, and a broken or missing cover in a yard with residents is not a cosmetic matter, it is an open hole onto the drain line.
It changes a great deal. A restaurant kitchen sends down more grease than all the flats together, and if its line joins the shared run it is the thing that decides when the run stops. We look at its grease trap and where its line enters the shared one more closely than anywhere else.