As I get closer to the date of the Great Bathroom Refit, I can bash holes in things to find out what's inside without having to live with the resulting mess for too long. I've just done exactly that with the boxed-in soil stack:
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new layout will require the toilet waste to enter from a direction at
90º to the current one; more or less from where the picture was taken.
Do you think I'm likely to be able to simply swivel the branch on the pipe, without having to break into the stack at all? Would make life a hell of a lot easier if I could...
If not, I'm presumably going to have to pull everything upwards to disassemble it. This is the highest fitting on the stack; it then goes through the loft and out the roof. However, I'm worried that if I lift it I'll break some sort of seal at roof level and cause a leak. This is an early 90s house; is there a typical fitting that's used? (and does it slide?)
Finally, when I bashed the hole in the side of the boxed in pipe, I found it stuffed with fibreglass loft insulation. It doesn't serve any immediately obvious purpose; is this normal and should I be aiming to replace it when I rebuild?
Provided the fittings are of the push-fit type and not solvent welded (do they make 110mm solvent weld fittings?) you should be able to turn it through 90 degrees without dismantling - I did something similar a few months ago. After removing the toilet, if you push a metre (or so) of scrap pipe into the socket, you'll get plenty of leverage. You will, however, have to make sure that the whole stack doesn't rotate - which could damage other connections or cause a leak where it passes through the roof. I held my stack with a strap (not chain) wrench, intended for undoing car oil filters. It's a lot easier if you have one or two helpers.
It's there for sound insulation - so that the whole household doesn't hear your turds being flushed away. Put it back!
"Pete Verdon" wrote in message news:h5so96$o6a$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org...
It looks like solvent weld pipe. If so, the answer is no.
That won't work with solvent weld either. You need to cut the pipe below the branch, fit a new section of pipe and fit your branch to that. You may be able to reuse the pipe above, by cutting it immediately above the branch and dropping it into the top of the new one. I would revise the bathroom layout.
I can't easily get at that bit of loft - I can see it, but it's down a narrow triangle of pitched roof and isn't boarded. I wouldn't want to be dismantling pipes and so on in there. However, I will be taking out the whole boxing-in, so I can get at the pipe above the floor-level branch in question in the bathroom itself.
But my turds don't go down that bit of pipe, unless I crap on the roof - the part the fibreglass is round is above the toilet branch. The matching boxing-in in the kitchen below (where that might makes sense) doesn't appear to contain fibreglass, at least not below unit level where I made another inspection hole. Even if some kind of noise did travel up the pipe, it's in the bathroom where the toilet itself is probably going to be noisier. There's no toilet on this stack on the ground floor.
Still, seems like a reasonable explanation, if misapplied in this particular case.
I wasn't really aware that solvent-weld soil pipe existed, however having looked at eg
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I have to agree with you. Arse.
How would you suggest fitting to the cut end of the existing pipe? I'm looking at page 130 of the BES catalogue and don't see anything suitable. All the soil stuff I've see before has been based on socketed pipe with the socket at the top end for things to fit neatly into.
I guess one could fit part number 13000 (short boss pipe,
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) to the cut-off top of the existing pipe. In fact, that could plausibly be in a location where I was planning to fit a strap-on boss anyway. But the top of it is then female solvent-weld, which doesn't necessarily get me where I need to be. Can the branches etc meant for ring-seal have their plain ends solvent-welded into something like that?
How about this item from Wickes:
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? Looks like it solvent-welds inside (based on the ridge halfway along) plain pipe and from then on we're back to ring seals. That below and a ring-seal slip coupling above?
I pretty much have to reuse the pipe above, as I can't get onto the roof to fit a new one. My plan is to clamp it rigidly in place above the area of operations and use a slip coupling to join back onto it when everything else is done.
Not really an option, given the shape. The current shower is small and, due to being at the end of a long, horizontal, probably sludged-up waste pipe, needs plungering most mornings to avoid overflowing the tray. The new shower plan fixes all that (right next to the stack, plenty of room) but to do so requires moving the toilet.
Yes you can, BUT, with a little care and attention. Run some diluted washing-up liquid around the spigot seams where the "T" meets both stack pipes, and leave it to seep in for a half hour or so before trying to move anything. This helps to lubricate the rubber rings inside the spigot joints, which may be a little dry and fragile after years of being in the same position. Don't want you to end up with a space shuttle disaster when you flush the loo for the first time.
The other thing I'd like to point out, is that the "T" looks to have two optional boss inlets on the sides. In the pictures you have given us, the stack and "T" are close to the wall on the side away from the main branch of the "T" (let's say the back of the tee). When you swivel the "T" around to the new position, the boss inlet may force the pipework away from the wall. This may need trimmed down with a hacksaw to make it shorter and not force the "T" away from the wall.
That's how it looks in the pictures, anyway, but I might be wrong because of the angle the shots where taking from. Something to be aware of, maybe.
The "T" should swivel around without problems, with a good bit of pressure on the existing pipe to the loo. Use the existing loo pipe as a lever to pull the "T" around. If you can, that is. If you can't use the existing pipe as a lever, then put a brush pole, or the like, in the branch and use that to put a constant pressure on the "T" until it moves.
Don't hit anything with a hammer. It's all plastic, and will break very easily. Use a constant pressure, with the helps of long levers if you can, until the adhesion of the rubber rings breaks. Once the "T" starts to move, it should slide around with a lot more ease. It's the initial "Getting it started" that can be the bitch. The rubber rings inside can, and do, adhere tightly to the walls of the plastic, so can need a good pull to make them break their hold. They've been in that one position for a long while, remember.
It's like everything else in a house, Pete. The fiberglass is there for a purpose. It's a bathroom, so needs to be kept warm, especially in winter, so the insulation helps in that. Also, it acts as a sound deafening system, to stop you hearing wind and water as they howl through the pipe as it's used and weathered. It may also be acting as a part fire break between floors and the loft. Leaving a gaping hole right through the house is a great way of allow smoke and fire to easily penetrate by the same route.
Make sure you have something to stop up the gaps around the pipework again, as tightly as you can, to stop smoke and flames from easily breaking through to other floors. And also make sure you have some sort of sound barrier in any pipe boxing, to stop you hearing the howls of the wind on stormy nights, and your solid waste banging its way down to the sewer system.
You do also need insulation inside pipe boxing. The waste water system may seem to be dry most of its life, but it actually has water lying in traps every so often along its length. Insulation doesn't just help prevent heat loss, but does actually help retain the heat in the pipework itself. Freezing in the pipework and you have to call out the plumbers because your sewer pipe has collapsed, because the trap got iced by the wind blowing down from the roof vent, and you removed the insulation that helped the pipe retain heat and stop that happening. The fiberglass insulation is there for a lot of reasons. HONESTLY, it is !!!
Good luck with it, and have fun. Some pictures of the finished product are always welcome in the group. They help keep our spirit up. :-)
"Pete Verdon" wrote in message news:h5t3so$edc$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org...
If anything, solvent weld is more common in the larger sizes, by which I mean up to 12 inch bore. It is cheaper and, if done properly, more reliable.
I would probably go for cuitting well clear, fitting a double socket, then a piece of plain pipe and putting whetever fittings I want on the top end of that.
Provided they are the right material to solvent weld, it should make a better job of it.
From the description, that looks like a solvent weld to push-fit adaptor, but I could be wrong.
I normally buy my fittings from these people. They are knowledgable and usually very helpful, so a phone call wouldn't hurt.
Yes it is. I've used some of those (not the Wickes one, from somewhere else) to "top off" a soil pipe emerging from the floor so that the solvent bit is under the floor and the push fit bit is more of less level with the floor surface.
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