Cost of drain excavation

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

As part of our on-going quest to get rid of any damp (finding a leaking pipe hidden behind a cupboard last week has definately helped!) we've had the drain man in who has poked around our drains and soakaway.
Due to the evidence of damaged bricks in the soakaway (which is directly behind another wall we are seeing evidence of damp on) he recommends excavating the soakaway drain and gulley/pipe to check for damage and if necessary replacing any bits, taking away earth, putting in gravel, etc and making it all good again and for this he's looking to charge £1250 including VAT.
Does this sound like a reasonable price?
I have no idea what this kind of work should cost but it sounds a little pricey to me.

The background is that we have already established with a survey that our outside ground levels are too high and are breaching the DPC and a French drain was also recommended to be doubly certain, which is the reason for getting this guy around, who although happy to fit us a french drain thinks maybe we should just look at the ground levels and any possible problems with the existing drains and soakaway.

 

[Anonymous]

French drains do silt up and can need excavating.

Its not skilled work, just labouring. Work out how many days it would take one fit man (or woman) to dig a large trench, lay a suitable drain, line and refill and the trench, get rid of the rubbish and tidy up - then multiply by what ever you think you can hire somebody at. No magic to it.

 

[Anonymous]

minidigger ? cost about £150 per day including driver

how is the access ? you can get really small diggers these days and they really reduce the cost of drain laying

 

[Anonymous]

We are having something similiar done..

just had a quote from our local builder..

£15 an hour plus £50 a day digger charge to put a new drain/manhole covers in.

is going to take 3 days work...

I always ask for every job.. "How long will it take"

I find in these jobs you are paying for the time, not the expertise..

If the person starts to look shifty and goes.. "err... 3 days"

then they are thinking,.. "How will I justify £1250"

don't be scared to ask what their daily rate, or hourly rate is...

 

[Anonymous]

I don't think a mini-digger is going to any good for digging a french drain, unless the middle joint on the digging arm articulates horizontally as well as vertically. If it doesn't, I don't think you'll be able to get close enough to the house wall.

But I'm prepared to be corrected on that!

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry, but I've got a nasty, suspicious mind.
Have you actually seen the broken bricks in the septic tank for yourself, and are you sure that they are detrimental to the structure?
I've always suspected that some builders rely on the fact that nobody wants to examine the interior of their septic tank (for obvious reasons) - makes it nice and easy to find mythical problems and charge a nice wad for fixing them!
And if I'm wrong I humbly apologise to your builder!

 

[Anonymous]

I should fink so mate - bloomin cheek!!

(X)

 

[Anonymous]

Absolutely right, David. We used a digger for the first tranche of our trench, but had to dig and barrow a heck of a lot of soil by hand when we realised that the bucket couldn't safely get close to the wall. And because the soil was banked right up against the back wall, there was a lot to shift - something approaching 30 cubic metres in our case!
Get in a case of beer, bung on a parge put of chilli and round up some strong and willing volunteers.

 

[Anonymous]

The one soakaway I'm familiar with was just a hole filled with gravel and other hardcore type junk, there was no brick lining or anything. I'm not clear how damaged bricks would have that much effect on its working.

Digging of the drain pipe for £1250... well, we had a drain access point dug out, and the pipe leading to it. Not sure how many hours it took, but basically an afternoon's hard work digging by hand to get to it, and about £20 of tools IIRC. How that plus fililng it again amounts to £1250 I cant imagine.

NT