Wastewater
Our sewerage systems collect domestic wastewater from drainage outlets around your home and carry it through a network of underground pipes to our treatment works. Here the effluent is cleaned and returned to the environment.
In some areas our sewers carry wastewater and rainwater in one pipe; combined sewers, and in other areas they carry rainwater and wastewater in separate pipes; separate sewers.
In the eyes of our customers a good sewerage system should be “out-of-sight and out-of-mind” and this is the service that Welsh Water aim to provide 24 hours each day and 365 days a year.
However, sometimes blockages and other faults occur, which we aren’t able to prevent and we need your help to tell us about these.
Occasionally these faults will occur on parts of the drainage system that you are responsible for and it’s important that you understand where your responsibility ends.
What do you own?
The purple pipes in the picture below. Pipes that only collect wastewater from your property, and which lie inside your home or within the boundary of your property are your responsibility.
What do we own?
The orange pipes in the picture below. Pipes that drain your own home, but lie outside your boundary and pipes serving both you and your neighbours are probably our responsibility.
What does the council own?
Councils are responsible for all blockages on properties they manage, highway drains and gulleys.
Proactive Sewer Inspections
We receive around 2,000 reports of sewer blockages each month from our customers.
Whilst many of these blockages will never happen again, some customers do suffer with repeat problems.
We’ve now begun a pilot programme to identify communities that have experienced a higher than average rate of sewer blockages.
To try to prevent these problems happening again we’re now making inspections of the sewer network in these areas to check that everything’s flowing as it should, that our pipes are in good condition and that customers aren’t flushing the wrong things down the drain.
We can’t get round all our communities this year, so we’re prioritising where we visit based on the history of problems in the area, as well as forecasts of where our next sewer blockage hotspots will be.
We’re letting customers know when we’re due to be in their area. In the meantime please continue to report any sewer blockages to us and be careful what you dispose of down the toilet or sink – following the simple steps that can be found on our Let’s Stop the Block pages.