open soil pipe

[chrishesketh]

I had a plumber out 4 months ago to sort my bathroom. The water from the bath has now started leaking through the kitchen ceiling. When I removed the bath panel, I found that where the bath waste came out of the bath, it joined a T piece, one end of the T piece just ends, and has been plastered full of sealant, and the soil pipe, that is internal, and origonally ran from the room down through the litchen, and was boxed in, has been sawn off underneath the bath, and the sink waste runs directly into it, and has been left open, and now the bathroom also smell of sewerage sometimes. Should a professional plumber!! have left a soil pipe open, and also either just filled an open pipe full of sealent, which is now leaking, or not noticed that it was full of sealant and just left it?? It seems like a bodged job to me, as he says he didnt touch the bit that was sealed, but he certainly messed with the soil pipe, as when I asked him if he should be cutting off the soil pipe, I was told he was a plumber and knew what he was doing. Shouldnt there be some sort of flap valve on it if it has been cut off???

Any advice on how to proceed!!

Not sure how to insert images here, but I can E-Mail them if anybody wishes to look!!

 

[ChrisR]

The man's stupid, incompetent etc. Of course the soil pipe must not be left open inside a building - breach of bldg regs and common sense. SOunds like you need a stub stack - a bit of soil pipe which goes above spill level, and has an air admittance valve on it ( AKA Durgo).

Whether you're likely to get anything out of your pillock is guesswork unless you want to sue and all that...

You'd perhaps be better off looking for someone with half a brain (that's all it takes), who is honest, and finds out about things he doesn't know.

NB There often isn't room etc for the "correct" solution so a compromise gets made which doesn't comply with regs, but, works.

 

[AdamW]

You certainly should NOT have a soil stack left open inside the bathroom like that. A soil stack should either poke out of your roof with a cover on the top to stop it getting blocked, or should have a venting cap on the top such as this.

Here are various soil stack bits.

Judging from what you have said, it sounds like you need to fit an access pipe for your sink waste to hook into, and have the air admittance valve above that.

They idiot who did that shouldn't be allowed to handle a pencil let alone plumbing.

 

[AdamW]

Beaten to the punch by Chris

 

[chrishesketh]

Thanks all.

Will let you know how I get on with the lunatic!!!

 

[TexMex]

This man must have been absolutely barking. I don't mean to worry you, but you do realise, rats can (and do) climb up soil pipes. That's why you have to terminate them with a guard, even when their up above the roof.

Since your hand basin is connecting into this stack, If you are fitting an AAV, even this must be higher than the outflow of the basin. Unfortunately, this probably means, still above the height of your bath.

 

[AdamW]

Is this an issue? I mean, the outflow from a basin surely isn't enough that water will shoot back up out of the valve... Unless the soil stack is entirely blocked (in which case I guess you would want the sink to not drain rather than have the valve overflow.)

 

[ChrisR]

Yes its an issue as in
"which goes above spill level"
They aren't designed to work under water! Look in the building regs.

Cowboy botch is to rely on vented basin trap. Resealing trap is better but harder to find I think. Trap can still pull out because of the volume of air. Next less bad is an undersized (eg 40 mm) stack extension with an AAV on top.
Fine for breaching building regs is lots per day until you put it right!

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Jeeeeeeezzzzzzz, where do these cowboys keep popping up from, open soil pipes, what a health hazard, might be worth contacting environmental heath or local authority to try and get him prosecuted, he definately wants his arsse kicking.

 

[chrishesketh]

Does anyone want to have a look at the images I have taken, for confirmation or basically a laugh. Let me know and I will E-Mail them to you. I paid £400 for the bathroom to be fixed, and basically all he has done is move the toilet closer to the wall,( when I put it in, it was a couple of inches from the wall, due to the waste pipe from the toilet, he cut this down, but this actually works!!), cocked up the bath plumbing and a bit of tiling. If he refuses to put right, do I have any recourse with the law, via the building regs??

Chris

 

[chrishesketh]

As an aside, I am cosidereing doing it myself, moving the sink waste to the pipe that has been gunged with sealant, as it should have been, and I think was origonally, and fitting a valve on top of the soil stack.

Would this be OK??

 

[ChrisR]

It's a civil matter basically between you and him. Ask your Building Control people but I bet they don't want to know. On New Build they go ape but not on old, in my exp. Let us know what they say. Number's in the book.

 

[TexMex]

Does anyone want to have a look at the images I have taken, for confirmation or basically a laugh. Let me know and I will E-Mail them to you

Yes please. You'll find my Email address in my profile. Alternatively you can post them on this thread. I'm sure we'd all like to see them.

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Yes pleese post on the forum so we can all see,

 

[ChrisR]

We see other people's craap plumbing every day, why look at more!!