Soil pipe problem

aliasojo

Thanks to a cowboy plumber (who I wont be getting back to fix his work btw), I now have a soil stack pipe that is leaking in 3 places. It's must have been like that for a good few months, very slowly seeping out. To think I thought the smell of urine we'd been getting was next door's cat spraying at our back door. :rolleyes:

Anyway, we are in the process of looking into products for our bathroom but we wont be in a position to buy for a couple of months. Rather than have to get a new plumber out now for the soil pipe and then out again for the bathroom, can I make a temporary fix to the soil pipe by covering the joins in sealant and wrapping duct tape all round it. Would that hold for a couple of months do you think? The whole 7 or 8 foot section he worked on will need replaced (as has everything else he's touched!!!).

It's 3 am and I'm sat here wide awake worrying about the pipe and my sanity as I'm so angry, I really do think I could become violent if I ever saw him again. :rolleyes:

EliteHeat

If its solvent weld joints then I don't think that you will be able to effect a repair (at least I have never been able to).

It would probably be best to cut out and replace. On re-instating, use a lot of solvent weld and work quickly, very quickly.

What else did your plumber mess up?

aliasojo

Name it.

Leaks under new sink. Leaks from pipework he re-routed after moving boiler. Leaks from new radiator. Valve on wrong way on radiator. Toilet cistern and pan taken out to provide access to soil pipe and also to replace s-bend with p-bend and when he put that back, that leaked too. He also put the ball valves you can use for shutting off the water...under the floor where they cant be accessed.

We had a great young lad in afterwards who fixed all the first plumber's messes but we didn't know about the soil pipe till lately. I'm going to get this lad back to cut out the part of the soil pipe that's the problem and do it properly but you need to wait ages for him which is why I thought I could botch some sort of fix together myself just for the short term. Then I could book him in advance for the bathroom and pipework.

I have no idea if this is solvent weld or not btw....I wasn't looking to fix it properly myself, I was just going to try to wrap sealant and tape over the top.

MX5huggy

Can you put a photo up? of where it is leaking, the soil stack would have very badly installed to leak as there should be nothing in it just stuff sliding!

aliasojo

I did take a photo as it happens but I'll need to go open a new Photobucket account as I have no idea what my old password is now. Give me a minute......

aliasojo

OK...apologies in advance, these are not the nicest of photos to look at. I should add, the whole pipe feels like if I just pushed it to the side a little...it would separate very easily at the join. I should also add, it has since all been bleached to within an inch of it's life so all the nasties are gone for the time being.

MX5huggy

Nice photos thanks! On that label does it say it's a slip coupling?

aliasojo

Yes, it does.

ariba10

What are the two white ring marks about 2 ins above the joints?

They make me wonder whether they are push fits that have not gone back in far enough.

aliasojo

That's what I originally thought.....I thought the white marks might have been where the coupling originally sat and it's slipped down somehow ...BUT I can't budge it, it seems well stuck.

The lower area of the coupling is leaking too though.

MX5huggy

The top of the coupling should be up where the white line are, in fact if you got it half way you would probably fix the problem atleast temporaly.

If its a slip coupling it has no internal stop to stop it falling down the lower pipe, if it a standard joint the the lower pipe must have fallen with the joint, are there any pipe clips anywhere?

If you have any type of access, which looks unlikley! I would cut out the joint and use 2 rubber pipe joiners with jubilee clips with a length of pipe.