uh-oh, toilet blocked!

wallofbeans

okay so this might get complicated.. plumbling experts welcome!!

our downstairs loo got blocked a couple of years ago and we had to get a dynorod guy round to sort it out. he checked the toilet and pipes, and outside pipes and the drain under the manhole cover in the garden.. cleared it but said that the actual blockage was in a pipe thats not accessible without pulling up the floor in the bathroom or the concrete in the garden. it's pipes inbetween when it leaves the house and gets to the accessible bits outside..??

i cant quite remember but it was tricky.

we didnt want to have to rip up the toilet floor and the problem only occured with number two's so we just made that loo for number ones only.. we were planning on moving anyway and thought we could manage.. we havent moved yet (still planning on going soon though!!)..

until now. someone didnt get that information and the loo blocked again. the bowl fills up with water and then drains out very slowly until there's almost nothing left... then water starts seeping through the floor tiles and soaking the floor...

can anyone advise me on who to call now?

will this work itself out if i just leave it for a while?

can i call the water board to fix it? are these pipes that i cant get to my problem or are they part of the sewage system and therefore a council issue?

is there any point me spending out another £100+ on getting dynorod back just to clear it but not actually fix it??

help!!

vegasvisitor

I have to say, you are planning on just selling the house and leaving that problem, that's pretty bad. Do you realise that they could turn that around on you and make you pay for the repair? Also, can't be too nice having loo water seep everywhere, why on earth would you not call out someone else and get it fixed properly?

We recently moved and we took 3 weeks to actually move in. We then realised that when we ran a bath and let it go, it went down the driveway and onto the road. I found this embarrassing as our neighbours would see it. We called out a drainage company, who told us he had been called out before and had recommended a dig up of the driveway which they declined. So for over a year they ran the bath away down the driveway, and the toilet wouldn't flush away properly either after the bath was run away.

I've got to wonder how anyone can live with such inconveniences, let alone have the brass neck to pass it on when selling the house. Think how annoyed you'd be if you inherited such a problem, costly and disruptive. When you move house you have plenty of other things to spend the money on.

loracan1

wallofbeans wrote: »

okay so this might get complicated.. plumbling experts welcome!!

our downstairs loo got blocked a couple of years ago and we had to get a dynorod guy round to sort it out. he checked the toilet and pipes, and outside pipes and the drain under the manhole cover in the garden.. cleared it but said that the actual blockage was in a pipe thats not accessible without pulling up the floor in the bathroom or the concrete in the garden. it's pipes inbetween when it leaves the house and gets to the accessible bits outside..??

i cant quite remember but it was tricky.

we didnt want to have to rip up the toilet floor and the problem only occured with number two's so we just made that loo for number ones only.. we were planning on moving anyway and thought we could manage.. we havent moved yet (still planning on going soon though!!)..

until now. someone didnt get that information and the loo blocked again. the bowl fills up with water and then drains out very slowly until there's almost nothing left... then water starts seeping through the floor tiles and soaking the floor...

can anyone advise me on who to call now?

will this work itself out if i just leave it for a while?

can i call the water board to fix it? are these pipes that i cant get to my problem or are they part of the sewage system and therefore a council issue?

is there any point me spending out another £100+ on getting dynorod back just to clear it but not actually fix it??

help!!

Sometimes, when you're a householder you have to stump up the cash and get stuff fixed.

(you've lived with a toilet in this condition for 2 years?!)

latecomer

definitely get it unblocked as you dont want that water seeping out and soaking into the floor. Then get the source of the problem fixed or stop using it completely.

goaliehammy

Sounds like you have either a collapsed sewer pipe, blocked sewer pipe or a disconnected sewer pipe but no matter what the floor will have to come up to get it fixed, and get the sewerage cleaned out from under the floor.

Innys

If I were to buy the house from you and you hadn't fixed this problem, I'd sue you.

Yes, everyone is a little economical with the truth when selling but this is a Health and Safety issue and needs to be fixed ASAP.

macman

It's nothing to do with the water authority, if it's leaking in the bathroom then the blockage or leak is under the bathroom floor then it's the owner's responsibiiity. What you describe is a health hazard so get a plumber out pronto (not dynorod).
Can you not just use a plunger (mop with a plastic bag tied around it) to clear the blockage temporarily, and then get it properly fixed?

paddy's_mum

... and if a purchaser with a better sense of smell than you comes into that loo and gets a faceful of whiff from the sewage water trapped beneath the flooring, you'll have lost a potential buyer.

If one of the family gets sick (because this is a serious health issue) how much will it cost you in petrol to the hospital, prescriptions, lost time at work to spend the day spewing down the other toilet ...

You, of course, may feel that it's the potential purchaser's look-out and nothing whatever to do with you. That's what a survey is for, isn't it? - in which case, one can only hope that you, in your turn, get took! Karma, my friend, karma .. :-)

Innys

andrew-b wrote: »

Rubbish..you can't sue a vendor of a property for not fixing a problem like this. Upto the buyer to get the drains tested...so Caveat Emptor. But it's certainly within the seller's interests to sort it as it could easily break a sale or a reduction in sale price.

Still it needs fixing asap as sewerage should not be coming up via the floor! If you have a collapsed drain then you may well be covered via your buildings insurance...worth checking it out.

Erm...I think you'll find that the vendor is required to advise the buyer of anything they know is wrong with the property before purchasing.

I know for a fact that neighbour disputes falls into this category so I would suggest that a Class 1 sewage hazard would too.

Following your logic, buyers would have to get absolutely everything in a house tested (e.g. history of subsidence, flood history, incidence of crime) before they chose to complete and there simply isn't enough time for that during the purchase process which is long enough as it is.

latecomer

While its true, proving it is the problem. In my OHs flat there was a problem with the kitchen where there had been a flood (actually several) and the units were all damaged. Now this was known the seller as they had arranged for a repair to the kitchen of the flat below on a couple of occassions.

When we pursued this, they eventually produced a hand written receipt from a friendly plumber which just happened to be dated after our viewing but before the survey. We knew for a fact that the damage had happened prior to this but were simply told it wasn't worth taking them to court as legal costs would far outweigh any damages awarded.

Doesn't make it right though. And more to the point who would want to live with a bathroom that is or has been saturated with water out a blocked toilet?

wallofbeans

okay. whoa! firstly, we NEVER wouldve sold the house without telling the buyers about the previous issue. Secondly, we thought it was fixed! We had a plumber take a look. He suggested dynorod, they came round and unblocked it and it all worked fine. He wasnt ever sure what the problem was (blamed rats in the sewers i think) which always worried me and we've been very over cautious with that loo ever since... although not had a problem with it until now. and its the exact same problem so its either happened again or wasnt solved the first time. its not smelt funny and flushed without problem in the meantime!

My problem was do I just call dynorod again, get charged another £100+ and get the issue fixed on a temporary basis again (or so I'd assume based on my experience with this so far) OR do i need to take this further. Between the tellings off im getting the impression (and Im agreeing) that I need to deal with this in a bigger way.

The plumber we had last time said it would be tricky as he thought it was a thames water issue. It was something about our house being built in 1873 and us having a shared drainage system that made it something that thames water have to deal with and not our plumber. I've just spoken to them and those two points made them take it very seriously and I'm getting a call back from an expert within 2 hours.

Thanks for the replies and please dont think we'd be as mean as to not tell a buyer that this is an issue, if it is!