BT joint/manhole/chamber on pedestrian waterlogged!

Hey all

I had a fault on my BT line where it was severely crackling. BT came round opened the joint/manhole (located on the pedestrian on my side of the road, directly outside the house) only to find the chamber is 95% fully flooded. The point box inside wasn't water tight so all the telephone lines have been affected due to this flooding.

The engineer cleared the flood (using buckets etc...) down to around 10% water but then after 20 mins the chamber flooded back up to 90/95% again, indicating some sort of water leak near/in the chamber.

He's fixed what he can for now but has advised that this could be a temporary fix as the flooding could affect the line. The permanent fix is for the chamber not to be flooded/have any water in the BT chamber whatsoever.

What do I do to fix this? Do I report this to the water company? Does BT report this? What's the procedure to get the ball rolling on an investigation/fix?

TIA

Edited by Bobby_Valentino (Thu 14-Dec-23 12:43:32)

The permanent fix is to make the joint waterproof. You will never stop the groundwater in the box.

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

The permanent fix is to make the joint waterproof. You will never stop the groundwater in the box.

So true

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

The permanent fix is to make the joint waterproof. You will never stop the groundwater in the box.

Interesting! Wouldn't it be logical to fix any potential water leak along with making the joint waterproof? This way it fixes any potential water pressure issues going into homes and the BT line is waterproof.

Edited by Bobby_Valentino (Thu 14-Dec-23 12:45:03)

In reply to a post by Bobby_Valentino:

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

The permanent fix is to make the joint waterproof. You will never stop the groundwater in the box.

Interesting! Wouldn't it be logical to fix any potential water leak along with making the joint waterproof?

May not turn out to be a water leak, possibly just ground water levels

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by Bobby_Valentino:

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

The permanent fix is to make the joint waterproof. You will never stop the groundwater in the box.

Interesting! Wouldn't it be logical to fix any potential water leak along with making the joint waterproof?

May not turn out to be a water leak, possibly just ground water levels

It's unlikely to be waste water as there was no foul smell or anything but isn't it worth logging to the water company for an inspection at least?

There's been a lot of rain lately, so ground water levels are high, so probably not a leak from the water supply or drainage. I don't believe the water company would be bothered to investigate it. These boxes are very often full of water.

I spent many happy hours and many unhappy hours pumping manholes. Many times on shifts with pumps running 24/7 whilst we were working.

When we were underground we often had to run sheeting to channel the water away from the work.

You will never stop the water coming in to underground structure.

I think half the problem is the guys who know what they are doing keeping the copper watertight are becoming rarer as they retire or take the redundancy money.

The water company can test for chlorine in the box but they are unlikely to do much about a leak in my experience. And the telecom engineer is not going to hang around waiting for the water board if he can help it.

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

The permanent fix is to make the joint waterproof. You will never stop the groundwater in the box.

Exactly right FB

If it’s filling up that quick, it’ll be running down ducts from other boxes. Many structures that are below ground level will fill with water to some degree.



Strap it high, keep it dry … 😃

We often used to pump the adjacent manholes to stop the water coming down the ducts and give us some peace from the incessant noise of the pump and generators.

Are you able to order FTTP which might be more resilient to water ingress?

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

Are you able to order FTTP which might be more resilient to water ingress?

Unfortunately not.

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

The water company can test for chlorine in the box but they are unlikely to do much about a leak in my experience. And the telecom engineer is not going to hang around waiting for the water board if he can help it.

The water company came out to inspect the stop tap outside and they noticed leaking and have raised a job to get the pipe fixed. The stop tap is like less than a meter away from the BT junction box. There's a correlation here

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

I think half the problem is the guys who know what they are doing keeping the copper watertight are becoming rarer as they retire or take the redundancy money.

Touché. My joint was missing a sealant around the edges but that's been installed now and strapped shut. No problems yet with the phone line but the flooding of the manhole does need sorting, esp as the stop tap (less than a meter away from the BT junction box) has been identified as leaking once it was turned off. This sounds like a strong candidate as to what's flooding the BT manhole and causing havoc with phone lines!

There will be a correlation when they dig through your telephone cable

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

There will be a correlation when they dig through your telephone cable

Fibre replacement to fix that?

If the box is filling up in 20 mins it's not from a leaking stop cock, unless by leaking you mean pouring out.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

If the box is filling up in 20 mins it's not from a leaking stop cock, unless by leaking you mean pouring out.

I didn't examine the stop cock, the water engineer did. But he's raised that due to the water on the stop cock (or something like that), there needs some additional work done to get it fixed.

What do you think filling up the manhole if it's not anything to do with stop cock, water pipes?

As said, probably ground water from another box or manhole.some box are perpetually filled with water. Good sealing of the cable joint and strapping it high in the box are essential ( as already stated)

As said, ground water levels are very high at the moment, so high that the field drains in many areas can't cope, down one side of our garden the water is rising out of the ground where it slopes down.

In reply to a post by burble:

As said, ground water levels are very high at the moment, so high that the field drains in many areas can't cope, down one side of our garden the water is rising out of the ground where it slopes down.

Some may have heard this also referred to as the water table level.

And the water table does take ages to recede. And as others have said, water ingress into underground cambers is normal, but decent drainage and proper sealing/jointing makes the issues less likely.

Back in 2013/15 era, i kept on having my line killed when other lines were being fixed. So you do get personnel who work badly sadly.

Anyways Bobby i hope you get your line fixed and it doesn't happen again 😁

In reply to a post by Taras:

And the water table does take ages to recede. And as others have said, water ingress into underground cambers is normal, but decent drainage and proper sealing/jointing makes the issues less likely.

Back in 2013/15 era, i kept on having my line killed when other lines were being fixed. So you do get personnel who work badly sadly.

Anyways Bobby i hope you get your line fixed and it doesn't happen again 😁

Thanks mate! Bit of an update, another engineer came out again as someone else on the street was having an issue ... and lo and behold as soon as he lifted the cover up the whole thing was full of fresh cold water all the up to the brim this time (99% flooded). The joint box was fully submerged in. He drained it with his makeshift plastic container but 5 mins later the whole thing came straight back up in no time. Bit of a FYI but he mentioned the phone line in the joint is aluminium ... is this normal or is the whole phone line from premises to the green cab meant to be copper?

The water board have marked where they think the leak is (very close to the BT manhole) so hopefully they can fix the leak when they come out and in turn the BT manhole won't get flooded.

My question is once the water lot fix the leak, will I need to call BT out again to drain the manhole and dry anything/fix wiring caused by the joint being fully submerged in from the past 2 weeks?

Edited by Bobby_Valentino (Mon 18-Dec-23 16:02:26)

My question is once the water lot fix the leak, will I need to call BT out again to drain the manhole and dry anything/fix wiring caused by the joint being fully submerged in from the past 2 weeks?

I would suggest that you won’t get anywhere with that. If your line tests OK, then they will be loathe to do so. A very high percent of UG boxes have water in them. If the one you are concerned about is the result of a leak nearby, then the water should abate once the leak is fixed.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

My question is once the water lot fix the leak, will I need to call BT out again to drain the manhole and dry anything/fix wiring caused by the joint being fully submerged in from the past 2 weeks?

I would suggest that you won’t get anywhere with that. If your line tests OK, then they will be loathe to do so. A very high percent of UG boxes have water in them. If the one you are concerned about is the result of a leak nearby, then the water should abate once the leak is fixed.

Merry X-Mas all. I've been delivered a nice shiny present of what is now turned into an overflowing BT manhole. The fresh cold water is slowly gushing out from the man hole on to the pedestrian. Happy Holidays indeed! Time to get the water company to come out sooner from their scheduled end of week appointment?

And at Christmas too! Have you had much rain in your area over the autumn? And what type are your soils? Are grassy areas squelchy to walk over? We have no flooding problems as we are near the top of a hill but we do have plenty of clay layers which tend to hold water.

You could try digging a hole about a foot deep: if I do that this week, the hole fills to within a few inches of the top because the soil is totally saturated after days of rain. (Ireland isn't green for nothing) Your box will fill in the same way, and the leaky stopcock you mention will accentuate Mother Nature.The only cure is to waterproof the connections.

Aluminium wire and water- oh gloom.

As the joint dries out, there'll be lots of white powder and high resistance joints.

We had trouble with a line which went noisy the day after each rainfall, as water level fell and oxidation took place.

Multiple call-outs, no fix.

Finally an Openreach man of, shall we say, a certain age came out opened the footway box and showed me where "a contractor" had stuck a few turns of PVC tape round a small diameter cable entering the joint. He opened the joint, which had about a pint of water in it. He then said, "This will never be any good unless the whole joint is remade, but we're not allowed to do that. But I'm going to do it." And so he did; stripped all the cables out, proper sized seals fitted, all joints remade. Took half a day.

No problems since.

Good luck with your problem.

In reply to a post by ajseeds:

Finally an Openreach man of, shall we say, a certain age came out opened the footway box and showed me where "a contractor" had stuck a few turns of PVC tape round a small diameter cable entering the joint. He opened the joint, which had about a pint of water in it. He then said, "This will never be any good unless the whole joint is remade, but we're not allowed to do that. But I'm going to do it." And so he did; stripped all the cables out, proper sized seals fitted, all joints remade. Took half a day.

No problems since.

If only we could pin your post so everyone could remember the people who do a really decent job.