Making a house extension possible

A picturesque location in Lancashire, a beautiful stone property with stunning views and a brand-new extension to increase the living space; the epitome of domestic bliss for the owners of a home in the hamlet of Grimsagh, which overlooks the Trough of Bowland.

Except for one issue that potentially rendered the extension facilities unusable. With no mains drains servicing the original house, all waste is disposed of via drain pipes to a large drain situated 20m from the property and discharged onwards to a septic tank at the bottom of the garden. However, when it came to the plumbing for the extension, there was simply not enough fall to allow the drainage pipes to reach the existing drain by gravity. With the need to discharge water waste from a new bathroom with shower, two toilets and basins plus a kitchen and washing machine, a solution was needed.

The installer, APG Plumbing and Heating of Leyland, called Saniflo to discuss a possible solution following a meeting at its offices just two months earlier. Recalling the offer of a free site visit for exactly this sort of problem, Howard Chattlee, owner of APG, met a member of the Saniflo team at the property. A survey was duly conducted, and a solution was proposed; one that wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye but could efficiently pump all waste from the new rooms to the mains drains.

The obvious solution proved to be a Sanifos 110 underground pump, which was subsequently specified by APG and supplied by Andrew Woodruff from a local merchant, Independent Heating and Plumbing, of Bamber Bridge. The unit is an automatic lifting station designed specifically for single dwellings to quietly pump waste away up to 110m horizontally. In this case, the requirement was for a much shorter run of just 20m.

Installed by the APG Plumbing and Heating team in November 2018, the Sanifos was buried close to the extension and connected to standard 4in waste pipes in the property for incoming waste whilst pumping out of 40mm pipes to the main drain. With 110l capacity, the Sanifos can accept waste from multiple sources in the extension at once and is activated by a float within the unit.