The Surbiton Court building is nearly 100 years old and through the years individual flats have been modernised and renovated – and continue to be. Plumbing methods, materials and standards have evolved in that time and what might be considered “normal” in a modern flat needs to be reviewed when making changes to a Surbiton Court flat.
This web page aims to provide the data for such a review. It also presents guidelines and good practice to consider when a kitchen, bathroom and/or central heating system are being refurbished and modernised. Most flat owners will be commissioning the work from professional plumbers, fitters and decorators; it will be worth bringing this web page to their attention before they start planning the work.
You are reminded that if a leak develops in the plumbing in your flat and results in damage to neighbouring flats and common parts, you will be liable for the first £3,500 of the excess before the insurance company will pay anything.
Before any work starts, therefore, flat owners must submit the plans for their new bathroom, kitchen and/or central heating to the SCRA Board for scrutiny and approval. This should reduce the chances of problems occurring subsequently. The Board will be looking mainly for features of the new plumbing that will avoid leaks from the new plumbing (both fresh and waste water), the ability to isolate the cause of a leak quickly and its potential to cause damage within both the flat itself and neighbouring flats.
If the advice set out in the “Information and guidelines” section below are followed when plans are drawn up and before submitting them to SCRA, delays in the approval process will be minimised.
Once approval has been granted, you should inform your immediate neighbours of the work taking place in your flat.
Should you have any queries, or require any further clarification, please do not hesitate to contact
snellers@surbitoncourt.com.
When Surbiton Court was first constructed, every flat had two sources of clean water:
The intention of this design appears to have been to provide constant water pressure to most of the taps in a flat at a time when water companies could not guarantee a reliable pressure. Many flats in Surbiton Court still have this arrangement.
Nowadays, however, mains pressure is reliable and, usually, more than adequate. Pressure from the roof tanks, however, can be variable depending on the floor on which a flat is located and how the hot water tank is configured. Some flats have had extra pumps installed to improve the pressure of hot and cold water feeding baths and showers.
Several flats have now replaced an old boiler and the hot water tank with a “combi” boiler in the kitchen, which takes a cold water feed directly from the mains and heats it up on demand. The hot water, at mains pressure, is then fed to both the kitchen and bathroom taps.
A subset of these flats have used the opportunity provided by the plumbing works to redirect the cold water supplies
to all taps so that they are also mains-fed. If this exercise is extended to the feed to the toilet, the flat then
becomes independent of the feed from the roof tank, thereby reducing the likelihood of problems arising from the fact
there are two supplies. If practical, eliminating the tank supply simplifies the flat's plumbing. However, it is not
mandatory to do so.
One result of the dual supply of clean water to the flats is that you may not qualify to have a water meter installed. For billing reasons, Thames Water usually require there to be only one meter per domestic premise.
If the plumbing in the flat has been modified so that all the supply comes from the rising main, there is a possibility that a meter can be installed, but it is then up to Thames Water engineers to visit, inspect and decide whether the layout of the plumbing permits it. To date, very few flats have been in this position.
Typical of older buildings, all the pipes carrying waste water in Surbiton Court are located on the outside of the building, reducing (though not entirely eliminating) the probability that the foul water involved in a blockage will not leak or spill out causing damage and distress in the flat and to its adjacent neighbours.
There are three types of waste water pipe:
Narrow waste pipes were usual in the days before washing machines and dishwashers. It was also at a time when Surbiton Court comprised “service flats”. At that time, there would be little clothes-washing carried out in the flats – soiled clothing was sent to the laundry. There was also little cooking and food preparation carried out in the flats. Residents would either eat in the Restaurant, now the Surbiton Court Mews building, or order food to be brought to them from the restaurant and other sources.
The change to modern living started in the 1950s and 60s, when kitchen appliances were installed capable of discharging large amounts of waste water down the pipes in one go. With the selling off of the restaurant block and increased cooking activity in the flats, some residents began, misguidedly, to tip kitchen waste down the kitchen sink, e.g. oil, fat, left-over rice and pulses. A combination of these factors had led to regular blockages of pipes and drains – with unpleasant results for all affected. Since then there have been constant reminders to residents to be mindful of what they put down the sink.
Although there is some evidence that there could have been a block-wide central heating system when Surbiton Court was built, it seems not to have been very extensive. The ground plan of the block shows most flats having fireplaces in more than one room, indicating that these would have been the main way by which flats were kept warm. There are also chimneys and chimneypots on the roof in places that correspond with what would be fireplaces in flats below, even though many of the fireplaces have since been removed and blanked off.
When the buildings were redeveloped in the 1960s, individual flat owners had the choice to install central heating systems, including floor-mounted gas boilers, radiators and associated plumbing. A few decided to install electric storage heaters instead. The latter required few alterations to a flat, but the former often resulted in floorboards being cut through to lay down the pipework underneath. To get the job done cheaply, the boards were just nailed back in place, rather than screwed down – or replaced. As they worked loose again through use, the whole floor started to squeak loudly when walked upon. The only effective remedy for this was / is to re-lay the floor and ensure the floorboards do not move, by screwing them down individually.
Please Note: If a neighbour makes a formal complaint about noise from flooring you will be obliged to rectify the situation.
Main stopcock to the flat. If your flat does not have the means to cut off the water supplies from both the rising main and from the roof tanks, you are strongly advised to have stopcocks installed close to where the supplies enter the flat. Although there are stopcocks on the mains outside, using them results in several flats losing their supplies at the same time. The outside stopcocks are also used sufficiently rarely that they sometimes seize up or fail resulting in long delays while a specialist plumber is located to fix them.
Isolation valves. Within a flat itself, you are advised to check (or have checked) the connections on all hot- and cold-water supply pipes to: taps, pumps, tanks and kitchen appliances, e.g. washing machine, dishwasher, condensing driers. Ideally, all of them should have stopcocks or valves fitted on the connected pipework so that they can be isolated in the case of a leak.
Accessibility to valves and stopcocks. When refurbishing a kitchen or bathroom, it can be aesthetically pleasing to have all pipework and drainpipes hidden behind sealed panels, tiled over or buried into the plaster. However, you should bear in mind that should a leak occur the plumber will need to access the plumbing as quickly as possible. Minimising the damage caused by removing tiles and digging pipes out of plaster takes time, so it is better to avoid choosing these options. When evaluating designs, therefore, you should specify panelling (plain or tiled) that can be quickly removed without causing damage.
Avoid blockages. The most common cause of damage – and distress to neighbours – due to waste water incidents in Surbiton Court is blocked downpipes and drains. For that reason, the SCRA Board constantly has to issue reminders to residents not to put anything down sinks or toilets that risks that happening (like wet-wipes, cooking oil and fat, rice and pulses). The “small-bore” wastepipes prevalent around the building (see above) have a higher risk of blockages than waste pipes in more modern buildings, so please be vigilant.
Overflow pipes from baths, sinks and toilets. A cause of inadvertent leakage of waste water is the plumbing of overflows in sinks, washbasins, baths, toilets, etc. Inspections have shown that in some flats the overflow is not connected to anything, so please check. Most modern toilets are now designed so that cistern overflows discharge into the toilet bowl itself, but it is worth verifying this.
Accessibility to valves and stopcocks. As with the plumbing for the water supply when refurbishing bathrooms and kitchens, please consider specifying that waste water plumbing is installed behind panelling that can be removed easily if a leak occurs behind it.
Check the slope of waste pipes. A final tip when considering the design of a new bathroom or kitchen: ensure that waste water pipes have sufficient “fall” (i.e. slope) so that the water drains away quickly. This reduces the opportunity for blockages to develop through the accumulation of debris. It is especially important in the case of baths and showers, where the plug-hole is close to floor level and the distance to the (external) downpipe makes the slope very shallow. This increases the chances that hair, soap, etc can accumulate and ultimately stop the flow of waste water completely. The solution may be to re-position the bath or shower closer to the outside wall, or raise it a few inches above floor level.
Replacing the boiler - condensate pipe.If your are replacing a gas boiler (for central heating and hot water), don’t forget this may be an opportunity to route the condensate pipe – if there is one – internally to the nearest drain pipe. This has advantages, not only for aesthetic reasons, but also because internal routing eliminates the possibility of the pipe freezing in winter and causing the boiler to shut down.
Isolating the central heating pipework. The water in the radiators of some central heating systems is pressurised by means of a top-up header tank fed from the mains, others by a combination of mains and a pressure tank. In both cases, there should be (i) a valve on the main supply to turn off the supply and (ii) a valve to hold back the water if the central heating circuit needs to be isolated. A flexible connector can be used between the two valves.
Checking for leaks in the CH system. Most central heating system leaks occur around pumps and in the joints attaching pipework to the radiators. Check the valves used to bleed the air out at the top of each radiator. Look also for damp patches on the floor/carpet below each radiator and for corrosion in any exposed pipework. Make a note to check these regularly and especially if the system has been off during the summer.
This page last updated 27 July 2026
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