Moving a soil pipe - advice

[John]

Hi,

and before anyone says i'm not thinking of moving the soil pipe myself : )

Just looking for a bit of advice really whilst mulling over some ideas. The muppet who built the extension on our house (mid 80s) didn't bother moving the soil pipe from the straight down the middle of the back wall of the house to the side avoiding the extension - so i've got a larged boxed off pipe running through the roof of the extension (which is the kitchen).

What's the problem with that you may ask? well i'm thinking of creating an open plan kitchen/dining areas to make best use of the space and there's a bloody great pipe in the way.

The floor of the extension is contrete and from what i can gather the drains run parallel to the back of the house. The house is a small terrace 1930s and there's only one toilet at the back upstairs.

My neighbour's got the main manhole cover in their garden and i've got what looks like a modern oval shaped inspection cover about 1m out from the back of the extension.

Anyway - to cut a long story short i want to get the pipe moved over to the end of the extension as it isn't the full width of the house. The drop angle from the toilet wouldn't be a problem as the roof of the extension is low enough.

Would it be a case of digging up the concrete floor in the extension and re-routing the drains, or could the section be sealed and a new connection added to the drains at the new location (assuming the drains are there and accessible etc etc)??

I know nobody can give me an exact answer and i don't want loads of posts saying "how long's a piece of string......" but just a "leave it alone" or "probably not too much trouble - probably cost you a few hundred quid govner!!" would be useful.

Cheers in advance. J

[Rick Dipper]

Assume the man hole is for dirty water, (lift it up, flush the bog and see if water appears) then I would simple start again. I would also try and work out when the next man hole is, incase it goes an unexpected way (mine do).

Put a new soil pipe in the correct place, dig a trench from the bottom to the drain. The from all the big bang a new hole in the wall for the pipe. For all the sinks etc, route the waste out throught the wall and then into the soil stack.

Next step, is to get a big bit of chalk, and chalk up all the pipe runs on the wall, this will allow you to work out how hard is going to be.

For the drain under the floor, I would cut the pipe off, and fill it in - I have no idea if this is the correct way.

Don't forget that you will need to sort out the roof as well, when you take down the old stack.

Rick

[G&M]

And also that your BCO will want to inspect the work and pressure test it so the old unused bit had better be sealed well.

[John]

Cheers for that. The drains for the sinks and the bath etc are all located in a sensible spot so i don't think they'd need to be moved. It's just the soil pipe that's in the way and it only has the one connection from the toilet. J

[IMM]

Sounds easy enough. The existing drain should go to your local inspection chamber. Test this by flushing the toilet and looking the the inspection chamber. I assume one bathroom here. It is a case of digging up around the inspection chamber and diverting the soil pipe to the new position on the outside wall. Run the drain pipe up the wall to the existing toilet position. Make sure you use plastic pipe that can be run externally.

Where is the kitchen sink connected? Is it to the exiting stack?

See:

look at the HepVo traps. Using these you don't need to run the stack above the eves. Just replace the basin, bath and kitchen sink with these traps. Only every 4th or 5th house requires the stack run up to the roof, or at the end of a line.

[The Natural Philosopher]

99 times out of a hundred, doing things with new components in fresh field sites is cheaper than buggering around with whats there already.

Look at where the pipe is to get to, where its coming from, and plan a route and do it as suggested - as new.

Then you can rip up /cap whats left witha clear conscience and no worries.