Dealing with wastewater

Unmetered households are charged for:

• Water supply
• Used water
• Surface water drainage
• Highway drainage

The charges for each of these services are calculated by multiplying the rateable value of your property by the rates for the services that you receive. These are fixed charges. To view all of these rates, please refer to our Scheme of Charges, which can be found on our website.

As with the water supply charge, if you are on a meter, your used water charge is based on the volume of water (using an actual or estimated meter reading) that your household uses. Please note that we do not usually provide sewerage (used water) services for customers in Zones 9 and 10, as Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water) and United Utilities provide sewerage services in these areas (Zone 10 isn’t shown on the map on page 4).

It’s possible that your sewerage services could be provided by another company if you are on the border of one of our other zones. Where this happens, we usually bill this service on behalf of the sewerage company, but their charges will differ from the ones in this document. Your bill will say who your wastewater company is.

For most customers, we assume that the volume of ‘water in’ is the same as the volume of ‘water out ’, for example the volume of water returned to sewer.

To work out the charge, we multiply the volume of water (based on an actual or estimated reading) by the appropriate rate.

The unit charge reflects ‘normal losses’. This covers water that doesn’t actually reach the sewer because of things like evaporation from cooking, clothes washing, bathing, hot water equipment and garden watering.

If you have an enquiry about a bill that’s been issued by another company, you should contact them directly. If you only receive sewerage services from Severn Trent, your water may be supplied by South Staffs Water Plc. If you have any queries about your sewerage service, you should contact us, and if you have a query about your bill or water supply, you should contact South Staffs Water.

For some household properties, our charge is based on the 1989/90 rateable value of the property. Where this is the case, the charge is calculated by multiplying the rateable value of your property by the rate for “surface water only”. Our current rates are set out in our scheme of charges document. Please note that we do not usually provide surface water drainage services for customers in Zones 9 and 10 as Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water) (Zone 10 isn’t shown on the above map) and United Utilities provide sewerage services in these areas

The five main types of sewers are:

• Surface water sewers
  Carry rainwater which runs off roofs and roads directly into rivers, watercourses and eventually the sea.
• Foul Sewers
  Carry the waste from toilets – water which has been used for cooking and washing and effluent from industrial premises – to sewage treatment works.
• Combined sewers
  Carry both the rainwater run-off from roofs and roads, as well as water which has been used for domestic and industrial purposes, to sewage treatment works. 
• Lateral drain
  A pipe that drains foul and/or surface water from a single property which is outside the boundary of the property it serves. Lateral drains are often under a public pavement or road. A lateral drain might run through the boundary of your property and even under your building if you share a sewer with your neighbour.
• Private sewers and drains
  All pipes within a property boundary that serve just a single property are referred to as private drains and are the responsibility of the property owner. All internal plumbing, roof drainage, downpipes, gullies and soakaways are also the responsibility of the property owner. 

While most of our sewerage system flows downhill using gravity, in low-lying areas we also use pumping stations to pump flows uphill to our sewage treatment works. Each pumping station has at least one pressurised pipe. These pumping stations vary in size – some will have large buildings while others only have a small control kiosk. All are powered by electricity and are installed with monitoring systems to flag up if a maintenance visit is needed.

We’re responsible for the majority of the sewers which drain buildings and roofs that serve residential areas and industrial complexes. We also adopt most sewers built as part of new development. Most of these sewers are situated under roads and public areas but can also be located on private land. 

Legislation transferred ownership of all shared wastewater pipes (sewers) and lateral drains which connect to the public system to water companies, meaning all wastewater pipes serving more than a single property before 1 October 2011 are now our responsibility.

Any new properties built after 1 October 2011, where the pipes are serving more than one property, will need to go through our adoption process; we’re only responsible for the pipe from the point where it leaves the curtilage (generally the boundary of your property). These are called lateral drains. All pipes within a property boundary that serve just a single property are referred to as private drains and remain the responsibility of the property owner.

The diagram below can assist in understanding these responsibilities and shows the normal layout of most drain and sewer systems, which applies to most property types. For ease, the diagram only shows a single system, but most properties have two separate systems draining them – one for wastewater and one for rainwater.

Any self-contained sewerage systems remain the responsibility of the private owner. For example, septic tanks, private treatment facilities that don’t connect to the public sewerage system, as well as the pipes which connect your property to the plant/tank.

If you’re buying a property, your solicitor should undertake searches that confirm which pipes will be your responsibility. You’re responsible for the maintenance, repair or replacement of all pipes that remain private, and it’s a good idea to check their condition (e.g. ask the owners if they have experienced any problems, or get a private contractor to survey the private pipework).

Most of our sewers are situated under roads or public open spaces; however, occasionally our sewers may run through private land. In this case we need to preserve a right of access for maintenance and legal protection against building over or near our pipes. Where we need to lay or maintain pipes in your land, we will follow a Code of Practice for working on private land. Please refer to our Code of Practice for Pipe Laying in Private Land for more information. There are restrictions on how close you can build to any public sewers that run across your land. Ofwat can consider complaints about work on private land under section 181 of the Water Industry Act 1991.

The legislation which transferred private drains and sewers into water company ownership also included private pumping stations, which transferred to us on or before 1 October 2016.

We are not obliged to adopt pumping stations which only serve a single property, as these will remain in private ownership

We’re not responsible for maintaining road gullies, highway drains, land drainage, groundwater, watercourses, culverted watercourses or rivers. Where the performance of our sewerage systems is being unduly affected owing to interaction with other systems, we will work with the respective authorities.

Find out more information on sewer ownership.

It’s our duty to keep a map showing the position of public sewers, and you have a right to view it. It’s free to view sewer records at our head office in Coventry, and paper copies can be ordered through our website at a cost of £24. Find out how to get access to sewer maps here.

Please note that while the responsibility for previously privately owned sewers transferred to us in October 2011, our records won’t show all the transferred sewers yet. We will build up this record over time as we respond to incidents and progressively map the transferred network. 

Commercial kitchens generate food waste – plus fats, oils, and grease (FOG) as part of their usual practices, but if you’re getting rid of it the wrong way, for example, allowing it to go down sinks and drains, then you could be breaking the law.

When FOG enters the sewer system through your sinks or dishwashers, it can cause blockages in pipes that can lead to foul smells, rodent and insect infestations, sewer flooding, and pollution. We can visit your commercial kitchen to see how you’re disposing of FOG in order to reduce the risk of blockages, floods, and pollution of the environment.

There are four key ways to help control the FOG discharge from your premises:

• Dry wipe dirty pots, pans, plates, and utensils into a bin – before they get washed in your sink or dishwasher.
• Use a sink strainer to catch food debris that might otherwise go down your plughole.
• Our advice is to install a correctly sized grease trap and maintain it according to the manufacturer’s instructions. From experience, this is considered the most effective means of preventing harmful matter from entering the sewer system.
• Correctly store used cooking oil, and arrange for it to be collected by a registered waste haulier.

There are several different laws that require catering businesses to manage the disposal of fat, oil and grease correctly, including:

• Water Industry Act 1991
• Environmental Protection Act 1990 - Duty of Care
• Environmental Protection Act 1990 – Statutory nuisance
• Animal By-products Regulations EC 1974/2002 (ABPR)
• Building Act 1984
• Food Safety Act 1990 

Failure to adhere to the legal requirements could lead to you being recharged for costs or prosecuted.

Recharging
We reserve the right to recover costs from businesses, contractors and food service establishments (FSEs) who have misused the sewer under Section 111 of the Water Industry Act 1991.

Sewer misuse can be caused by the improper disposal of matter and/or fats, oils and grease (FOG) into a sewer connecting to a public sewer which interferes with its free flow.

The impact of these environmental incidents can affect, but is not limited to, the following: the premises of the FSE, local communities, public areas, nature reserves, sewage pumping stations and waste water treatment works.

Prosecution
Should any business fail to comply with restrictions on the use of public sewers, including instances of FOG discharging from their establishment, we may look to prosecute under Section 111 of the Water Industry Act 1991.

75% of all our sewer blockages are caused by the wrong things being put down the sink or loo - like wet wipes, sanitary products, vegetable fats and cooking oils. When this happens, it builds up over time, stopping the normal flow of wastewater, which might flood your home or garden. That’s something none of us wants to happen.

Our sewers are only designed to take away the wastewater content of sinks, baths, showers and toilets, so all other waste should go in the bin. For some more tips on how to help us avoid blockages, visit here.

Blockages in sewers can result in smells, back-up of sewage, flooding or pollution. If we receive contact from you notifying us of a blockage that needs clearing, we will try to establish whether the blockage is within our network or within the pipework that you’re responsible for. If the blockage is in your pipework, this would be your responsibility to deal with; therefore, we won’t send a team out, as you will need to either deal with it yourself, pay a drain clearing company to clear the problem or resolve it via your insurer.

Where we can’t confirm the location of a problem through our questions, or where we believe the problem to be in our pipework, we will send out a drain clearing team. If they discover the problem is actually on the pipe you’re responsible for, they’ll let you know. You can then either use an independent drainage contractor to carry out any necessary work, or we will offer to clear the blockage for you. There’s a charge for this service, and you’ll be offered an upfront fixed price to clear the blockage. If you can’t pay for the service, or would prefer to resolve it yourself, we will leave the job at that point. Once our team have left site, we cannot return at a later date to carry out this service. The service we provide on your pipework will only be to restore flow in the pipe; it won’t be to repair the drain. If the pipework is broken, you may be insured and may want to contact your insurer to have the drain repaired. 

We aim to make sure there’s sufficient capacity in our sewer systems to protect homes from sewer flooding. Unfortunately, during severe storms, the amount of rainfall entering the sewers can exceed the capacity of the pipes and result in sewer flooding. This type of flooding is referred to as hydraulic overloading.

Over the past few years, the amount of rainwater entering our sewers has been increasing, often as a result of paving over front gardens and covering over grassed areas which previously allowed rainwater to naturally drain into the ground. This, combined with a changing climate and heavier bursts of rain, means our sewers are working harder than ever due to the increased speed at which rainwater gets into the sewers and increases the chance that sewer capacity will be exceeded.

We plan to protect areas at high risk of flooding due to hydraulic overloading following heavy rainfall, but there may still be occasions during extreme weather when it’s not physically possible for the sewerage system to cope with the volume of flow.

Sewer flooding can also happen when pipes block, collapse or are affected by backing up when pumping stations break down. Around 80% of flooding problems are caused by these types of problems.

Most flooding incidents caused by blockages are a result of the wrong things being flushed down toilets, such as wipes, nappies and sanitary products, or where fat, oil and grease are poured down kitchen sinks. These then stick to the inside of pipes, solidify and restrict the flow in the sewer. These types of problems will often result in smells or can affect toilet flushing.

You can find more information on what not to flush here.

If you need to report sewer flooding, please contact us via WhatsApp or call our 24-hour Customer Operations Service Centre (0800 783 4444).

Where the incident disrupts service or causes flooding to property, we will aim to arrive as soon as possible. Our response times to attend a flooding are as follows:

• If you are experiencing internal sewer flooding, we aim to arrive within 4 hours.
• If your flooding is outside the home but within the boundary of your property, we aim to attend on the same day if your report was received before 12 pm; if you reported this after 12 pm, we will aim to attend up to 10 pm the next day. 

During times of exceptionally heavy rainfall, when there are a large number of flooding incidents, it may take a little longer.

We will give you a named contact if you’ve suffered internal flooding, as well as more information which explains what happens next and our responsibilities. Our flood expert will get in touch to update you on the findings of our review and explain what happens next.

We’re not legally liable to customers for loss or damage caused by flooding from public sewers unless we’ve been negligent. Our sewers are an open network so we can’t control what gets put into them. If you’re affected by flooding and it has resulted in loss or damage to your property, your insurance company should be able to help. It’s a good idea to check your insurance regularly, because it’s up to you to ensure you’re properly covered. If your home insurance company believe we are liable for the sewer flood, they will contact us. As a matter of course, we ask that any query comes from your insurer as they’re best placed to make these enquiries.

We will make sure the problem is dealt with quickly and that we do as much as we can to help afterwards. In nearly all circumstances we will give you practical advice and support. We can carry out a basic external clean-up, e.g. disinfecting external affected hard surface areas, as a gesture of goodwill if you ask us to, as long as it can be done without contaminating or damaging any of your personal belongings. 

Under statutory compensation schemes, if there’s been a flood inside your home (internal flooding) that was caused by the public sewerage network, you’re entitled to a full refund of the sewerage charge you’ve paid for the year.

On average, the annual sewerage charge is £140, but we will pay £300 as a minimum and a maximum of £2000. We will be working hard to try and prevent any future flooding. In the highly unlikely event that there is another sewer flood that affects the inside of your home, you’ll receive another refund.

Under statutory compensation schemes, if you’ve suffered flooding in your garden or driveway (external flooding) that was caused by the public sewerage network, you might be entitled to a payment of 50% of your sewerage charge; as a minimum, we will pay you £150 and a maximum of £1000. You won’t receive this if the flood is classed as an escape of sewerage and not a flood. An escape of sewerage is a small amount of flooding in an isolated area. More details can be found in our Guaranteed Standards Scheme Code of Practice on our website.

If you are a non-household customer, speak to your retailer for advice about payments you might be entitled to receive.

Read more information on sewer flooding and how to prevent it, or read our sewer flooding guide.

Every year we investigate a large number of pollution reports affecting local watercourses, which are caused by incorrect connections to the sewer, and these can take a considerable amount of time to investigate. It is important that connections are made to the correct type of sewer. For example, pollution can arise if foul flows are connected into surface water drains or sewers which then run into local watercourses.

Most problems are associated with the installation of washing machines or dishwashers, where outlet pipes are accidentally connected to a surface water drain instead of the foul drain. Chemicals and food waste can then contaminate the watercourse and affect water quality. Wrong connections can also occur from extensions when new toilets and sinks are incorrectly connected to the surface water drain. 

If you are making any new connection to the foul or waste drains, please ensure that the connection is to a foul or combined drain/sewer. Information on how to correctly install a washing machine or dishwasher will be included in the device’s instruction leaflets, and your local council will be able to advise you about any building regulation requirements concerning building drainage.

You are entitled to have your drain or sewer connected to our public sewer network in order to drain domestic foul sewage and stormwater away, as long as it meets certain practical requirements.

There will be a charge for this service, which is explained below. It’s your responsibility to undertake the design of the new drainage, locate a suitable sewer to connect to, confirm the location and depth of the sewer and to employ a suitable contractor to undertake the work on your behalf.

Please note, although you can view our sewer records at our head office (or through our website as mentioned previously), they can contain some discrepancies. Also note that while the responsibility for previously privately owned sewers transferred to us in October 2011, our records won’t show all the transferred sewers yet. We will build up this record over time as we respond to incidents and progressively map the transferred network.

Before connecting, you will need to give us details of the drain or sewer to be connected, where you intend to connect to our network, how the connection will be made and who will be completing the connection works. We will let you know within 21 days whether your proposals are acceptable.

We can refuse the connection if the connection does not meet the required standards or is not suitable for our sewer. We will explain the reason for any refusal. For example, we won’t agree to a foul drain to be connected to a surface water sewer, and we won’t allow a surface water pipe to be connected to a foul/combined sewer if there’s a suitable surface water sewer available. If you disagree with our decision, you can appeal to our regulator, Ofwat.

For each new sewer connection you’ll have to pay:

• An Application Fee: This covers our cost to assess your connection proposals, inspection of the work and, where relevant, transferring responsibility for the lateral drain or sewer to us.
• A S104 Agreement fee: This covers our costs to issue & complete the sewer adoption agreement
• An Infrastructure Charge: This is a fixed contribution to the cost of developing the local sewer network to account for growth. It’s normally collected when you apply for the new water supply. More details on this are in section 6.5 below.

Once you’ve received approval, you should give us a minimum of five days’ notice of the day when your contractor intends to complete the connection works.

We may not have a suitable existing sewer for you to connect your property to, or it may require access across third-party land. In these circumstances, you and your neighbours, or the district council, can ask us to provide a suitable sewer for you to connect to and, where practical, we will do so.

If a new sewer is needed, we aim to have an asset available for use within six months (or a longer period may be agreed to suit your programme or because of reasons beyond our reasonable control, e.g. Highways/Rail/EA notice/permits ) after design work is concluded and an agreement is reached. You will be required to pay the full cost of delivering the works, some of which will be required before we begin design work and the rest prior to construction. 

We will complete a final account with you after construction is finished to ensure the reasonable costs are recovered but equally to ensure we don’t over-recover.

If we fail to meet this deadline and you sustain loss or damage as a result, you may have a legal claim against us. Any dispute may be referred to Ofwat. Further information on this can be obtained from our Developer Services Team (0800 707 6600) or email us at new.connections@severntrent.co.uk. 

Since 1 April 1996, sewerage authorities have had a duty to provide a suitable public sewer for domestic purposes to properties which are not currently connected directly or indirectly to public sewers.

This duty applies where:

• The existing private drainage is causing or is likely to cause environmental or amenity problems; and
• Provision of a public sewer is a more appropriate, cost-beneficial solution compared to provision of a private option. 

Such applications will be assessed using the criteria set out in the guidance notes issued by Defra. Where our investigations show that the qualifying criteria are not met, we will explain the reasons why we’ve been unable to approve your application. Where the criteria are met, the cost of providing a suitable public sewerage system connected to your property will be funded by us as part of our investment programme. 

When a new property is connected to our water mains or sewerage system for the first time, we must make sure that we can deliver the same high standard of service as a result of the extra demand. For all new connections (except for fire supplies), you must pay an infrastructure charge, one for water and one for sewerage, which is a fixed contribution towards additional investment in our local distribution system.

The charge is in addition to the actual cost of making a connection. Infrastructure charges are intended to make sure that the costs of the investment are met from a one-off charge to new properties as and when they are connected rather than from higher charges to existing properties.

If your development site/address includes properties where there has previously been a billable account within 5 years of your new connection, a credit may be applicable towards this cost. If the infrastructure charges, or part of them, are not paid within 14 days of connection, or if an agreement to pay the charges is terminated incorrectly, then we have the right to recover the charges.

If part of the infrastructure charges have already been paid, then this amount will be treated as a credit and subtracted from the total charge. The infrastructure charge for a domestic supply is agreed annually and agreed with Ofwat. Details on our charges can be found here.

The sewers bring domestic and industrial effluents to sewage works for treatment and safe disposal to rivers. The treated sewage effluent discharged from our treatment works must comply with statutory conditions set by the Environment Agency (EA). We take samples of our discharges, analyse them in a laboratory and then submit the results to the EA to show we are complying with our statutory conditions. The EA keeps a public register of these sample results, and you can find out more about the EA below.

All sewage sludge, the by-product of sewage treatment, must be disposed of in accordance with statutory requirements and Government licences. We operate our works in accordance with good practice, but sewage can smell. We try to limit the smell as much as possible but cannot guarantee to eliminate it altogether. To find out more about Sewer Smells, please visit our Sewer Smells guide.

If we’re causing you a nuisance, please contact us; our contact details can be found on the last page. 

The EA is responsible for controlling the pollution of rivers, draining land, controlling floods and issuing fishing licences. The EA regulates how much water we may take from the rivers and other inland and underground sources for water supply and our return of the water to rivers after it has been used and treated. Contact the EA at:

The Environment Agency
Sapphire House East
550 Streetsbrook Road
Solihull
B91 1QT
Tel: 0370 850 6506