hi i'm just looking for some help please,i've got a vent at the top of my roof that has two 5inch pipes coming down from it that then go into the wall that joins my flat to my neighbours,my only thought was that it serves to vent a space between our flats,that's if they even have a cavity between the blockwork??you'll have to forgive my ignorance,if possible i'd like to remove them
How old is the building?
It sounds to me like they are the vent stacks for the plumbing. If so, they probably go all the way down to the basement and tie into the main sewer pipe.
Regardless of what they are, why do you want to remove them?
its a late 60s building,they are taking up a fair bit of room in the loft and they leak or the ridge vent does,i was thinking remove them completely and replace with
a nice new tile,thanks for your reply.
Well, I can't imagine that they serve no purpose. Unless you can physically see where they end once inside the loft, like if they are hanging free, I don't think you should start trying to remove them.
Here's a thought if you are comfortable going up on the roof: put your ear over the vent opening and have someone flush a toilet. If you hear the hollow sound of water flowing, it's your vent stack. Another option would to stretch some plastic wrap over the opening and secure it with a rubber band or tape. Then have someone flush a toilet and see if the plastic pulls inward. That would indicate that it is trying to pull air in, once again proving it's your vent stack.
ian17 wrote the following on 3/9/2013 1:48 PM (ET):
Do you own the flat? You can't modify anything in a rental. Do any of the other flats have the same setup? If not, then the pipes may serve all the flats in your building.
Not to mention that even if they are unused and are entirely his, removing a pipe going through a tile roof and properly restoring the tile, etc, doesn't sound like a trivial task. That the pipes apparently go into the wall between his unit and the next strongly suggest they are there for some legitimate purpose, like plumbing vents for example.
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