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 has been going on for some weeks but as there were no other symptoms, I put it down to a blockage in the pipe to the soil stack even though the intermittent nature was bugging me.
It seemed to be getting worse over the last week so I got around to investigating yesterday and the first surprise is the shower trap and waste pipe were pretty clear, so I decided to put a high volume of water down using the shower and loo flushes, and eventually, the water level backed up in the tray. It's a riser shower tray several inches off the floor and it soon became apparent that the water level in the loo was also rising - so its suggesting a partial blockage further down the soil stack and you don't see the problem until the stack has filled up.
This is where things get a bit odd........
We have a downstairs loo and main bathroom, so stopped using the en-suite toilet pending further investigation - and just used the shower on the basis that might help clear the blockage. Today, I can't reproduce the backing up no matter how much water I put down - suggesting the blockage has partially or perhaps even completely cleared. The problem is I can't see where on earth the water is going!
If you look at the diagram below, the soil stack for the en-suite is boxed in, in the hall about 8 foot from the front of the house and it's a concrete floor. There is an inspection point about three foot in front of the house with three inlets. Two definitely go to the downstairs cloak room sink and loo as I've put water through to confirm. The third seems to head off in the direction of the en-suite soil stack which would seem to make sense, BUT it's dry even when I'm pouring water down the en-suite stack by the gallon - and that is just plain weird.
The back of the house (a good 23ft from the en-suite soil stack) has a similar inspection point outside with two inlets - one from the main bathroom soil stack outside of the house, and the other from the kitchen sink waste. There is nothing in that inspection point either when water is going down the en-suite soil stack.
There is a large inspection cover as marked and that is a good 12 foot away from the soil stack. I've not been able to get this up yet and in any case, I imagine it might be surface water drainage rather than sewerage as the sewerage goes off in two other directions as shown.
Any ideas appreciated!
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 has been going on for some weeks but as there were no other symptoms, I put it down to a blockage in the pipe to the soil stack even though the intermittent nature was bugging me.
It seemed to be getting worse over the last week so I got around to investigating yesterday and the first surprise is the shower trap and waste pipe were pretty clear, so I decided to put a high volume of water down using the shower and loo flushes, and eventually, the water level backed up in the tray. It's a riser shower tray several inches off the floor and it soon became apparent that the water level in the loo was also rising - so its suggesting a partial blockage further down the soil stack and you don't see the problem until the stack has filled up.
This is where things get a bit odd........
We have a downstairs loo and main bathroom, so stopped using the en-suite toilet pending further investigation - and just used the shower on the basis that might help clear the blockage. Today, I can't reproduce the backing up no matter how much water I put down - suggesting the blockage has partially or perhaps even completely cleared. The problem is I can't see where on earth the water is going!
If you look at the diagram below, the soil stack for the en-suite is boxed in, in the hall about 8 foot from the front of the house and it's a concrete floor. There is an inspection point about three foot in front of the house with three inlets. Two definitely go to the downstairs cloak room sink and loo as I've put water through to confirm. The third seems to head off in the direction of the en-suite soil stack which would seem to make sense, BUT it's dry even when I'm pouring water down the en-suite stack by the gallon - and that is just plain weird.
The back of the house (a good 23ft from the en-suite soil stack) has a similar inspection point outside with two inlets - one from the main bathroom soil stack outside of the house, and the other from the kitchen sink waste. There is nothing in that inspection point either when water is going down the en-suite soil stack.
There is a large inspection cover as marked and that is a good 12 foot away from the soil stack. I've not been able to get this up yet and in any case, I imagine it might be surface water drainage rather than sewerage as the sewerage goes off in two other directions as shown.
Any ideas appreciated!
