Soil pipe access.

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Hi, i am in the unfortunate postion of having some sort of blockage on my main sewage pipe.

I have zero access to this, their are no man hole covers on my property or any that i can see around my property, its a small blockage as i get overflow out of the main stack if i empty a bath of water, flushing toilet, shower etc will not cause the main stack inside the house to overflow.

I am wanting to try and install some sort of access port onto the soil piper underground. I have dug this out and it is running right next to my neighbours outside wall, my original plan was to install a "mini inspection chamber"

Due to the fact the soil pipe is so close to the wall their is zero room to get a mini inspection chamber in position.

Is it possible to install a Y peice and come up and install a "rodding point" which i found on screw fix website.

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Can you get access to the soil pipe above ground?

Ie, at the back of the ground floor pan/boxed in soil pipe?

House is a single bedroom, no toilet downstairs. soil stack goes up as it enters the house at that location and goes internaly all the way up in the kitchen to the bathroom upstairs. Bathroom is all tiled and boxed in, kicthen is the same. I can see the soil pipe from inside the kitchen cuboard. though their is not much room at all to do anything in their in terms of trying to get it cleaned out.

When i empty the bath it basically starts seeping out the connections for sink/washer into that cupboard in the kitchen, and back fills all the way up the soil pipe and poors out like a fountain from where the bath connects to the soil pipe in the bathroom so i assume seal at top is not as great as seal at the bottom. it all ends up in the kitchen cupboard downstairs.

I do infact have a current insurance plan for drainage and blockages. I was going to use it, but when i read the fine print it says basically if you do not have access to unblock it then they will not fix the problem.

No idea how soil stacks are normaly unblocked, but thinking about it, i guess in reality they have access from the top of the stack coming out the roof, not sure if they could put something down from their that would each the bottom of the stack, or even put a camera down to have a look?
 
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Soldato
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House is a single bedroom, no toilet downstairs. soil stack goes up as it enters the house at that location and goes internaly all the way up in the kitchen to the bathroom upstairs. Bathroom is all tiled and boxed in, kicthen is the same. I can see the soil pipe from inside the kitchen cuboard. though their is not much room at all to do anything in their in terms of trying to get it cleaned out.

When i empty the bath it basically starts seeping out the connections for sink/washer into that cupboard in the kitchen, and back fills all the way up the soil pipe and poors out like a fountain from where the bath connects to the soil pipe in the bathroom so i assume seal at top is not as great as seal at the bottom. it all ends up in the kitchen cupboard downstairs.

I do infact have a current insurance plan for drainage and blockages. I was going to use it, but when i read the fine print it says basically if you do not have access to unblock it then they will not fix the problem.

No idea how soil stacks are normaly unblocked, but thinking about it, i guess in reality they have access from the top of the stack coming out the roof, not sure if they could put something down from their that would each the bottom of the stack, or even put a camera down to have a look?

Nowadays you are supposed to have rodding eyes or inspection chambers just outside properties as good design, but older properties don't have that luxury. You can try to identify the next chamber downstream, and pay a contractor to jet it upstream to sort the problem out short term, and install an IC/RE outside.
 
Soldato
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Do you or have you used wipes? flushable or otherwise? I would say there is a blockage at some point most likely the bend at the bottom of the stack something is caught, options are rent/borrow some rods and find the nearest access point (manhole) to your property (there has to be one at every pipe intersection) using a screw end you then rod back towards your property and see what happens, its possible the blockage is not even on your property but caused by another household flushing god knows what down the loo. I had experience of this a few years back as the woman up the road was flushing nappies down the loo :rolleyes:
 
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Are you on a shared drain? If so I think your sewage company are responsible for clearing blockages for free. If your drain only serves your property before entering the main sewer in the street then it's the home owner's responsibility. Not sure about if the blockage is internally to the property, than that is probably your responsibility either way.

Oh and the wipes might say flushable on the pack but all that means is they leave your toilet bowl but will still block your pipes up.
 

UTT

UTT

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House is a single bedroom, no toilet downstairs. soil stack goes up as it enters the house at that location and goes internaly all the way up in the kitchen to the bathroom upstairs. Bathroom is all tiled and boxed in, kicthen is the same. I can see the soil pipe from inside the kitchen cuboard. though their is not much room at all to do anything in their in terms of trying to get it cleaned out.

When i empty the bath it basically starts seeping out the connections for sink/washer into that cupboard in the kitchen, and back fills all the way up the soil pipe and poors out like a fountain from where the bath connects to the soil pipe in the bathroom so i assume seal at top is not as great as seal at the bottom. it all ends up in the kitchen cupboard downstairs.

I do infact have a current insurance plan for drainage and blockages. I was going to use it, but when i read the fine print it says basically if you do not have access to unblock it then they will not fix the problem.

No idea how soil stacks are normaly unblocked, but thinking about it, i guess in reality they have access from the top of the stack coming out the roof, not sure if they could put something down from their that would each the bottom of the stack, or even put a camera down to have a look?


As mentioned by someone else, try contacting your water authority about the blockage.

If the blockage is down stream of your property there's a good chance it's their responsibility and if the blockage is not downstream then at least you know it's your problem.

The best access point sounds like under kitchen cupboard. Is there enough pipe/access to cut a 4" piece of the pipe out?
 
Soldato
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I feel for you -my last blockage cost me a four figure sum.

As said get the experts in and once cleared get a rodding point in. Drains are a pain in the ass.

I thought you had to have rodding access every 25 m

These days I pour a bucket of water down my toilet on a regular basis - I have no confidence in these new low water cisterns especially on older drains
 
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I f you have not filled in yet CHANGE that tee to a Y you won`t be able to rod a tee as easily if at all
Although you could jetwash down there

I nearly put a Y piece in, but that would mean i would need two Y pieces in order to rod either side, this is not ideal but its better than nothing.

I purchased a karcher attachment for £60 that is a drain jetter, which works perfect for this kind of setup.

Did you find out what was causing the blockage? Almost always someone flushing wipes down the bog!

Not sure what it was, but its clean as a whistle now
 
Soldato
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I had a jetter for my pressure washer - shoved it up as far as the bend to bathroom - released the pressure and it was stuck solid up the pipe - in the end I had to dig down to the bend which was made up of three 33 degree bends and when builders fitted it all together it was a few inches over so they pulled on the bend till it fitted with the result the join on the outside of the bends opened out and jetter was stuck nose down in a gap. - It was good in the end because I put a plastic swept bend it - bad bit was my drains are pitch asbestos with crock bends.

good job there - I also used those rubber connectors and put a Y piece in just back to the bathroom.
 
Soldato
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I take it you tried a sink unblocker? I would have been tempted to use a few bottles worth to see if that dislodged it at all.
 
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I take it you tried a sink unblocker? I would have been tempted to use a few bottles worth to see if that dislodged it at all.

Yea tried some drain cleaner fluid, did not seem to have any effect.

But given the cost of doing this myself, around £50, its worth it to have some sort of access to the pipe for the future anyway.
 
Caporegime
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I take it you tried a sink unblocker? I would have been tempted to use a few bottles worth to see if that dislodged it at all.
washing up liquid can work wonders.

used half a bottle to unblock my toilet the other day, probably all the "flushable wipes" I used to use
 
Soldato
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I nearly put a Y piece in, but that would mean i would need two Y pieces in order to rod either side, this is not ideal but its better than nothing.
You generally only need to rod down slope as it were towards the main drain.`Stuff`upslope will usually flow down after this :)
 
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