Removing downstairs toilet

[Duncan Lees]

A house I'm think of buying has a really small downstair toilet at the end of the kitchen extension. It's really too small to keep in it's current state, and it would be mutch better to simply remove it to make better use of the space for the rest of the kitchen.

Does anyone know what would be involved? The soil pipe just disappears down through the concrete floor. Can the pipe be chopped off and capped somehow, or would the whole pipe need tracing back to the main drain and disconnected there?

Cheers,

-Duncan

[Christian McArdle]

A friend of mine was refused permission by a building control officer to remove his identical fixture. The BCO's interpretation of Part M was that a house could not be made less accessible to disabled people than it is already. People have disputed his interpretation on this newsgroup. However, you might want to get your local BCO's opinion on this before commiting, as even if you could win an appeal, it might be more effort than it is worth.

Christian.

[Duncan Lees]

It never even entered my head that I'd need permission to remove an existing toilet. It really is a waste of space - just a couple of inches each side of the pan! It's barely big enough for an able bodied person to use, let alone someone in a wheelchair!

Thanks for the warning! I'll let you know what they say.

-Duncan

[Peter Crosland]

Sorry to appear pedantic but disabled does not just mean in a wheelchair! There are plenty of people who can walk short distances but cannot manage stairs. I now because I am one of those .

[Duncan Lees]

Okay, I'll ammend the statement to "It's barely big enough for an able bodied person to use, let alone someone in a wheelchair or an overweight limited capacity walker!".

-Duncan

[The Natural Philosopher]

The answer is, of course, to build and outdie toilet for disabled use :-)

[Michael McNeil]

The answer is do the dirty deed as though you were an Englishman at home in his castle.

First switch the mains off and plug the water feed to the cistern at a suitable place for reconnecting if at a later date that is required. Next remove the cistern and pan and glue a slate or suitable piece of plastic over the sewage pipe with some grip fix or any mastic as a temporary seal.

Next remove the cubicle and see what sort of levels you need to make good with the floors and ceilings etc.

Patch or panel the walls and make good the floor. You may have to hack some of the toilet floor away to put a suitable permanent seal in under the new floor. If it's just going to be covered with cupboards this is unecessary.

Wedge a newspaper in the pipe to stop debris falling down it. It isn't necessary to level the floor if there are going to be units there, as they can be adjusted to almost any floor level.

RSoles that want to tell you how to run your house should be put in their places. Bstrds!

[StealthUK]

An extra toilet is nice but if it opens into the kitchen I just think it's very unhygenic, more so if it doesn't have washing facilities built-in.

[MJ]

And this means? My universal translator is inoperative.

MJ

[MJ]

Good point. A toilet opening in to a kitchen would almost certainly override anybody's objections to disabled access. And I've got a second toilet downstairs which I would quite happily dismantle without any reference to a Buildings officer if I wanted to. But I don't need the space and I feel it adds more value to the house. It's also useful when some bloody girl is in the upstairs one shaving something.

MJ

[Owain]

wrote | The Natural Philosopher wrote: | >The answer is, of course, to build and outdie toilet for disabled use :-) | And this means? My universal translator is inoperative.

An outdie toilet is where the cripple falls over and dies of hypothermia

Owain

[Christian McArdle]

Strangely not. My friend's toilet opens into the kitchen and doesn't even have hand washing facilities. They still wouldn't let him take it out. He's decided to put a wash basin in there anyway, but they couldn't force him to.

Christian.

[Duncan Lees]

Thankyou, good advice. Talking to the neighbours of the property yesterday, it seems that the house is probably the last one on the street with the toilet still in place.

-Duncan

[MJ]

Not being argumentative, but I only mentioned it because I'd got a vague recollection that it was illegal for this. Maybe on new houses. Maybe not. I'll go back to my cupboard under the stairs now.

MJ

[dave]

Hi there, I am in a similar situation in a victorian house with 1960s extension bathroom downstairs. I want to remove the exiting bathroom and toilet downtairs and recolate it all upstairs. I have no extra space downstairs even under stairs to relocate a WC. So could I just install a macerator fixed to a water pipe or even a temporary porta-loo thing to cover the Concil Building Control inspection? The imperative word here is 'temporary' of course ;-) Any advice would be most appreciated please.

[alan_m]

The usual advice is.....

[newshound]

I am on my third macerator in the same house in 30 years. The second replacement was thanks to an expensive but stupid cleaner who put a whole packet of ordinary (non flushable) wet wipes into it. That model, unlike the first, did not have an adequate overtemperature trip to protect the motor against stalling, hence the need to buy a third.

Apart from that, I have had one condenser failure and one microswitch failure and one (fixable) failure caused by a daughter.

You don't say how long you might expect to have the temporary one. Generally, I would say you should *never* have to rely on one, you should always have a backup conventional loo. If it is only for a short time, and you are planning to re-use it maybe in an en suite, then perhaps. I assume you are living in the house at the same time.