My mother inlaw who lives in sheltered housing has just had her bath replaced with a shower. However there are now two pipes draining into the shower base. After inspection these are the overflows from the cistern and the hot water header tank. The question is why. They could have quite easily been connected to the main drains. Has it been done this way so they you can see if either are overflowing? If so how would it have been done before when the bath was there? Thanks for any advice
Steve
Yes, it's for visibility - otherwise they could overflow for ever, and no-one would know.
Maybe they previously fed into the bath?
It's a bodge - they didn't have room to run them properly once the bath was removed without doing more work than they could be bothered with.
If its a bodge where can I run them to, does the overflow have to be visible, it wasen't when the bath was fitted?
The usual method would be to take them through an external wall and leave them sticking out - east to see when there is an overflow as you get wet when you walk underneath!
This is the case on most houses but I don't know if there will be any rules/regs against doing this in her sheltered housing.
The overflowing water has to be visible. In flats, one way is a special bath overflow which looks normal but actually has two connections -- one to drain an overflowing bath as normal, and the other to accept the overflow from tanks/cistern, and direct that flow into the bath so it can be seen.
The alternative is something called a tundish, which is a a flared receptacle that fits atop of the waste pipe, and the overflow pipe empties into it from above, although the two are separated by an inch or so, so you can see the drips. You can buy them, possibly even make your own.
Andy.
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