Shower tray / shower trap

HI Folks

Finally traced the source of the nasty 'sewage' smell in our ground-floor shower room.

It's got one of those nasty 'wet-room' type showers - a 6" tiled upstand across the width of the room and a 'not-slopey-enough' tiled area with a shower trap set in the floor.

The water trap is ever so shallow (accessed by removing the grille over the trap) and, as the shower isn't used all that frequently, and the water evaporates, the nasty smells from the drain outside find their way up the waste pipe and into the room. Problem solved at the moment by stuffing a cork into the drain-pipe - but that's a bit inconvenient (apparently)

So - what to do about it ?

I've not fitted a shower tray for a while - don;t know what the current 'traps' look like. Thinking of planting a complete new tray on top of the 6" upstand to allow a proper trap to be fitted under the tray and pipe it though a new hole to the drain outside.

Any other possibilities or suggestions please ?

Thanks Adrian

Reply to
Adrian
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I would consider a HepVO trap. It seals without water being present.

Reply to
Rod

I have this n occasion. The rather shallow trap gets sucked dry by any drain activity nearby. An air admittance valve somewhere should help, or simply tipping a cup of water down the trap every day.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Sounds interesting. Do you have a link Rod?

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Pray, what is a link rod? same as a drain rod?? lol Dave

Reply to
Dave

Technical term used only in Kent & Nottingham...

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

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HAND etc etc

Reply to
RW

Thanks for that - never heard of these things before - looks like just the thing.... (having googled)

(Only trouble is, there's now a ton of firewood stacked against the outside wall where the shower drain exits..... and this would be the ideal place to fit such a valve as a 'quick fix' - bother !!)

Any idea what the length of these units is ? Couldn't seem to find a dimensioned drawing on the web...

Thanks Adrian

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Reply to
Adrian

Yes - I guess it might.

Don't know who installed the drainage in this place - but they had one or two quite 'original' ideas...

The top end of the 4" soil pipe was left open, and vented into the roofspace of the upstairs bathroom. After a bit of fiddling, there's now an air-admittance valve on there. That cured some / most of the nasty smells. When the wind was in a certain direction the draught from the eaves vents was distributing the smell from the open vent pipe throughout the house. Nice !

The 'trap' on this shower tray can't be much more than 1/2" of water - spread over a 3" diameter. Again - when the wind's right (!) the air-flow through the waste pipe draws foul air in from the outside drain

- which isn't nice. All ground-floor waste pipes simply stop above their respective drains, without any elbows. Possibly adding elbows to the end of the waste pipes might help to prevent the air-flow ..?

Don't you love 'finishing off' for builders & plumbers !??

Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

Hepworth's own site certainly used to have an excellent document with fully dimensioned drawings. But I can't find it! (Had neat drawings showing each way in which the HepVO is superior to a conventional trap. One was that that the trap could never dry out - by suction, evaporation, whatever.)

Ahaaa!! Try this link - think you can get it here - have not checked what each document is but I am sure one be have what you need.

We have three in the house. And I am considering another one...

One because it was easier and avoided problems with clearance, etc. Two because when fitting basins into units, the ability to have a horizontal, hidden trap or one that fits very neatly is a huge advantage.

I also used some of Hepworth's flexible waste pipe with solvent weld ends - which was really nice to use.

Reply to
Rod

Thanks - what a confusing website ! Nearest thing I could find to a dimensioned sketch of the HepVO was this photo

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- which gives an idea of the actual size.

Problem I can see is fitting this on the 'outside end' of the waste pipe (- I know it's an odd place to fit it but the inside section of the pipe is embedded in concrete under the cast-in shower area). The thing is so long that it's need some fancy right-angle bends to direct the waste water back into the gully trap...

Maybe I'll try fitting a 90-degree bend on the end of the waste pipe - so's the wind can't blow up the pipe so easily....? (again - this means moving a quantity of firewood that I so carefully stacked over the drain, only last week ! Doh!!!)

Sounds like a great invention - must file away for future reference!

Thanks Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

Seems you can identify documents for download, then (if you are lucky) use the "DOWNLOAD FOLDER" to download them all in one go. Not very nice in reality. Find the document MMHPG.pdf and download that - page 5. (Seeing I have been successful, I can email if you wish. Drop me an email if you want.)

Do bear in mind, the HepVO trap can be fitted elsewhere than immediately below the shower tray.

Reply to
Rod

nice idea... in theory !

Not very nice

True

If you wouldn't mind, that'd be great - snipped-for-privacy@ambquality.co.uk will reach me

Yes - that's what I was banking on. Might do for a short-term solution until I can rip the rotten thing out and do it again, properly! Having said that, might use a HepVO on the MK II version - looks like a great idea - many thanks

Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

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