Will I have to keep this if I get my patio redone?

[Soopermum1]

It's a pain in the arse

Some kind of outlet and drain, yes? Where's it coming from, on the other side of the wall?

How can a drain be a PITA?

Do you have a downstairs toilet?

We need to know what the pipe is attached to inside first to know if you need to keep it or not. What is it? Boiler? Old fashioned toilet overflow?

Attached to kitchen sink and dishwasher

I need to keep the drain, but want to lose the concrete surround. It would mean I could sweep water from the patio into it, when I'm cleaning it

How well do you think you would manage without it ?

I think it would be beneficial to lose the concrete, but I would definitely keep the drain. Not sure what the purpose of the concrete surround is

There is a risk the water from the pipe would spill onto the patio if there was no surround.
It maybe that the pipe could extend deeper into the drain but you don't want to get it to act as a syphon.

That sounds like a good idea @TwoLeftSocksWithHoles. If the water did splash it wouldn't be a big deal, it's just kitchen sink and dishwasher water, so pretty clean

We had something similar in the house in which I grew up, without the concrete surround - just a drain with a grid surrounded by flags. Very useful for sweeping water into. I don’t see why you’d need the surround unless it’s a modern building standard? Our house was old.

Oh I see the outlet already is extended into the drain. Perhaps fill the sink up, and pull the plug out at the same time the dishwasher is emptying and watch what happens.

I guess it is to prevent splash or overflow when the pipes discharge and to prevent dirt washing into the drain. There are probably alternatives, ask whoever is laying it?

If you want crap from your kitchen sink and dishwasher all over your patio, go ahead. Think food grease and particles, tea leaves, etc, whatever usually washes down your sink. You'd have to clean the patio regularly. They don't make these kind of things for no reason.

The edging is to stop debris such as leaves and stones from going down the drain and blocking it. Your plan for cleaning the patio like that and brushing water and debris down it is asking for trouble.

as well as finding out what the waste pipe is draining, I'd recommend you have the paving slabs lifted so you can see what is underneath.

depending on the age of your house, the gully might be leaking, or the previous paving may have raised the ground level, which can cause damp.

btw the paving should have a slight slope so that water falling on it runs away from the house before soaking into the ground, or some other kind of drain.

The extension was built in 2005 so there was nothing there before. No evidence of damp, good point re the water flowing away from the house, I think the current layout has that covered

You will probably want some sort of drain next to your house. When we had our patio redone we put a french drain next to the house and covered it with pebbles.

That will be a foul drain so firstly you aren't supposed to put rain water into it, patios are supposed to drain into the surrounding ground.
On a related point, if there is heavy rain and people's patios are draining into the foul drain it can overwhelm the system as it's only designed for loos etc, causing sewage from the whole Street to pour out onto your garden.
And yes that happened to us last month in the heavy rain.
In the good news you can get it changed to a direct connection underground, and get rid of the gully and replace with an inspection cover if necessary. A good ground worker would be able to deal with that. That's what I'd recommend, and what we will be changing over to!

I agree with @TwoLeftSocksWithHoles,
A wall around the drain stops dish water / greasy water going over your patio and leaves , feathers, seeds getting washed into the drain and blocking it .
I have 4 sodding grids and manhole cover to the whole streets drains in my small 16 x 16 ish foot ) yard .
Last year one of them must have got seeds in it at some point and decided to sprout all sorts of vegetation coming out of it I had to get the HA 3 times to sort it out
I really need to buy some covers for them but 2 are awkward to cover

Thanks all, will go with @johnd2 s suggestion. I do have another drain on the patio, for rainwater, so will look into getting this drain sealed and get rid of the concrete thingy

The surround could be made less high

We have an open drain like that and it has no surround just a tad lower than the slabs

We had the opposite - moved into a house where the dishwasher and washing machine discharged into a drain with only a tiny concrete lip around it. Nowhere near enough to contain fast gushing water which would splash all over the path. It was dirty and smelly. We did an ugly patch job by building up some more concrete around it.

You’d be astonished at just how much water your appliances discharge when it’s sloshing down your patio, and just how dirty it can be.