Upgrading Old & New Channel Gratings

Channel gratings, “Aco” drains, pavement drains, trench drains and French drains, whatever you know them as they’re the sort of long narrow drains you often see along the pavement or below door thresholds on footpaths or household patios.

Aco drain overhaul and new installations with cast iron grilles can be fraught with difficulty because matching the channel with the grating can be troublesome.

It is tiresome but if a cast iron grille is required to fit into an existing channel then it’s often more simpler to replace the channel as well to get a matching pair..

You see we use the 108mm wide Manthorpe Channel…

and then combine it with our 108mm Quatrefoil grille

for a perfect fit !

However if you’re leaving an Aco drainage channel in place and fitting a new cast iron grille – then you have a problem…

The problem is the Aco system is 117mm (above) so it certainly won’t accept a 100mm wide grille (4″) and it looks even worse with a 5″ (125mm grille)…

… and it won’t even accept our Quatrefoil gratings below

There are a few other channel systems available but again, if they’re not 108mm wide then they’re not going to be suitable for our Quatrefoil grilles and hardly any are exactly imperial widths so even a 4″ 100mm grille will be too small …

So the solution is to install a new channel complete with new cast iron so the two match like our stunning Quatrefoil complete with Manthorpe system below

There is one other method were cast iron bearers  are used and a channel is formed out of cement and or concrete. Find out how we installed this here to create a walkway and bridge.