Lead to plastic waste pipe connector.

Oh. gotcha - see what you mean now!

 

Hello all of you.

Well, it's all good. I took the day off of work and even though the kids were of school and my wife was at work for the morning; I got the job done.

Turned out that the blockage was due to:

a) a string of beads; my son is sort of obsessed with beads and usually has a few sets in the bath with him. Usually we are very careful to make sure that none go down the drain but sometimes he pulls the plug himself and we have to race upstairs to make sure none of them go down the drain - guess we missed that set

b) Some sort of disgusting hairball (well, I guess this is always present?)

c) A 15mm solder ring union (WTF?!)

I got the inspection eye open with a bolster chisel and plenty of gentle taps (as suggested here). That worked a treat, but didn't reveal much. I got my daughter to chuck a couple of saucepans full of water down the loo and that sailed past just fine. When she ran the sink or bath, there was nothing obvious coming through.

I carefully measured up the pipework and, with a little bit of simple maths, I worked out the length of pipe in the wall. Then I measured the length of rod that I was able to get down the pipe and this suggested that the blockage was in the lead outside. I popped down to Screwfix and bought the flexible connector then came home and hacksawed through the pipework, taking about 35mm out as the flexi connector measures about 40mm between the jubilee clips.

I managed to carefully bend the right hand section so that I could see into the left hand section and there were the beads. The rest of it had sort of solidified so I stuffed and old builders bag in the soil stack, under the eye and gave the offending blob a whack with a hammer and screwdriver. It fell out onto the bag and I retrieved it, called it names, and laughed at it for a while.

After that, I deburred the pipe ends with a round file and some emery cloth. I lubed them up with petroleum jelly and slipped the flexi connector over them, done up the jubilee clips, closed the eye and filled up the bath with cold water.

When I pulled the plug, I got that satisfying whoosh that I haven't heard for months - nice big whirlpool toward the end of draining and I am now happy.

The only thing that went wrong was that the inspection eye cover leaked. I popped a bead of silicone sealant around it (after giving it a good clean) and refitted. Sadly I snapped one of the heads off so I will need to extract the stud and replace it.

Well, thank you all for your help, I really appreciate the time and thought that all of you have put into contributing. Pic attached for you too

Seriously, thanks

Nick.

 

Oops, sorry - I really did mean to reply earlier after all the help you guys gave me! Yes, i can see the stud so I will get it out and measure the thread - then I will buy or make a new one.

 

I did the first picture, which I guess is wrong as gunk might accumulate in the gappy bit? Well, it's done now and at least it's easy to clear the gappy bit if I need to.

Thank you again for all of your help

Do you know that I still allow myself a smile when I see the water whoosing down the pipe after i take the plug out? See what joy you have brought to a simple man?

 

Ha ha ha, yes - I am sure I have!