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I'm semi-retired and have started doing some odds and ends of chargeable work on a self-employed basis. These are a combination of repair/mtce work (where I'm looking to get myself some PL insurance), and advice/consultancy type services (where I could do with some PI insurance). I'd like to...

Are you getting any gurgling from sink or shower or bath when one of them is operated? If they have been plumbed into the same horizontal waste pipe (as opposed to individually into the soil stack) as sometimes happens in older installations, you can get the water being syphoned out of a trap...

Thanks for the advice. I'll give it a go - but the only thing I can be absolutely certain of right now, is that none of the water going down the soil pipe is turning up in any of the three inspection points I am able to access. Mrs Midge was repeatedly flushing the en-suite loo for me today...

An update on this courtesy of my improvised cr*p cam (!) That third dry inlet in the inspection chamber at the front of our house is definitely a pipe, not capped, and as you can see from the photo, there are marks on the pipe wall that suggest it has been used for it's purpose. We've had no...

I hope it is the reed as its a few minute job to change one. But the advantage of taking the reeds off the collars to test them properly, is you also have a potential workaround irrespective of whether the cause is reed or float. i.e. the reeds are wired in parallel, and there may be enough flow...

Just bear in mind that the flow switch is two components - the reed switch strapped around the outlet, and a float inside with a magnet that moves when you turn the shower valve on. It's possible one of the two float switches is stuck/gunged up - so a reed is operating correctly. It's easy to...

Adds a new dimension to the term sh*t broadband speed!

Thanks. If I look at the neighbours, there is simply nothing of interest to the right of my diagram - i.e. the house adjacent has services up the far side of their property from us. The outlet from the inspection point at the back of our house goes to a larger inspection cover in the back yard...

Finally managed to get the large inspection cover up today and as expected, that is surface water drainage not sewerage. So with the en-suite sink tap left on, there is no trace of any water going through any of the three inspection chambers we have. My plan with the USB camera in the front...

It will all have been done at the same time. The inspection point at the front is quite deep - a good couple of foot to the bottom - and looks like clay but I can't be sure. I've got a tiny USB camera on a cable that has illumination around it, so I'm going to try and rig that up on a pole...

Thanks. Yes - it might help if I manage to get that large inspection cover up and find its sewer. But right now, water is going down the en-suite stack by the gallon and not appearing in either front or back inspection points.

V Stack is through the roof and vent to atmosphere. Agree on the head of water - its a power shower in the en-suite and it was still taking a while to back up which suggests the blockage was quite a way down the stack - e.g. where it curves to the horizontal or on the horizontal. Downstairs...

Have a bit of a strange soil pipe blockage issue affecting our upstairs en-suite bathroom and wondered if anyone had any ideas. The initial symptom was the en-suite shower tray drain intermittently backing up. i.e. one minute it would be fine, the next minute you're in a paddling pool! This...

Great - that looks like it will do the job. Cheers.

Those were my thoughts exactly, and it looks like I need to go to Specsavers Harry. I've cleaned it up and had the outer edges under a magnifier and that confirms it's not solid. It's just that the surface is dead flat and has picked up machining marks from the head and block. Cheers.

Sorry if I wasn't clear Harry. There is a "gasket" but it is just flat machined steel as opposed to composite. i.e. it would never have compressed in any way. Have owned the mower since new and the head has never been off before.

Managed to strip the spark plug threads on my Mountfield mower. It's around 35 years old. Got the cylinder head off and while I wait for a helicoil kit to arrive, does anyone have any thoughts on what to do with the head gasket? I was expecting some sort of composite gasket I would be...

Well, it has to be said that this little job was like your worst sticky label removal nightmare. I'm sure there are some diseases that are easier to get rid of than this stuff! I managed to strip down the Maycom and sort that out too - but what's interesting is the battery box section removes...

If it's during the wash cycle, the first place to look will be the circulation pump if you've had the machine a few years. If you want an idea what can go wrong, have a look at what happened to ours which is a Siemens but it's pretty much identical to Bosch machines of the same era and the same...

I have pretty much the same layout. Dishwasher one side of a 600mm base unit where the sink bowl is, washing machine the other, so the appliances add no support to the worktop. Like you suggest, I kept the bottom few inches of the back panel but there is so much pipework in mine (mains water in...