UPDATED (2) What's going on with my drains?

aliasojo

jhe wrote: »

we borrowed a metal detector to locate a manhole cover.

Oh what a flipping good idea. :T

Sorry Ben84, that sounds easier to me than forking all over the garden now.

Son was talking about buying one at Xmas. Wonder if he went ahead......

poppellerant

Have you tried caustic soda? I think it's about £2.50 these days in Wilkinsons - get the plugholes and toilet bowls warm with some hot (NOT BOILING) water, pour down the caustic soda and leave for about 30 minutes. Come back to it, pour down plenty more hot water and flush/rinse after about 5 minutes.

Caustic soda woks very well with hot water, and if you use a good dose of the soda with hot water it should dissolve most blockages at your end. But DO NOT USE BOILING WATER with the caustic soda, as it may spit in your face! :eek:

aliasojo

Tried the caustic soda. Also bought various drain unblockers from B&Q etc. And shelled out £17.99 for one of those power flushers. Nothing seems to make a difference long term. That why we wondered if there was an actual issue of some sort with the pipe itself iyswim.

ColinFishwick

It sounds like you done all you can. If it hair which is often the case some drain unblockers chemicals will fix it. It could be something like fat build up, cotton buds, nappies people chuck all sorts of stuff down the pan thinking it will simple flush away

Ben84

If you don't find the manhole you may find buried treasure However, if for any reason you don't get hold of a metal detector you could still probably cut down the search area with a bit of guess work. A good start would be looking over your neighbours' fences and seeing if and where their manhole covers are. If the houses are similar they may be in the same place, or you can use their location relative to the house to make a guess at the direction the drain pipe from your house would go to meet the main sewer.

As for chemicals down the drains, they can work great and I have used them with good results on some occasions. But you have to be cautious, as with a blocked drain you're not just adding but also potentially mixing everything you put down there. Not all drain cleaning chemicals are compatible and poisonous fumes can be produced. Drain rod companies may also be less enthusiastic to rod your drains if there's chemicals in the standing water that could be hazardous for them or damage their equipment. So, using chemicals is a bit of a gamble and if it doesn't work it may make things worse later.

Also be careful with hot water or exothermic chemicals in a ceramic toilet, they crack surprisingly easily when heated quickly

savemoney

Soda crystals are good for cleaning drains but it sounds like you got something far serious

http://www.diybasics.co.uk/unblockingdrains.html
http://www.dri-pak.co.uk/household-cleaning-tips/drains.html

I agree about being careful with chemicals might be best to flush

ormus

hints to finding your drains etc...
generally drains run at 90 degrees to the public sewer. and usually in straight lines.
they also tend to follow the line of the building/property. as above.
whenever there is a 90 degree turn, an inspection chamber should be installed.

ormus

look carefully,
your cast iron soil pipe may have an access plate similar to the above.
often sited on a swept bend.

aliasojo

Thanks ormus. Ground is frozen solid at the moment and more frost is forecast so the drain hunt will probably not be very easy. Might have to just keep plunging for a couple of days until the cold spell passes. :undecided

aliasojo

Just wanted to bump this in case anyone else had any ideas.

Been all over the garden, the only thing we can find is a small square drain cover in the back garden at the top end of the house under the kitchen window that the drain from the kitchen sink goes into. (The white drain pipe comes out through the wall and down the outside of the wall and just discharges into this drain. )This is nowhere near the toilets.

The house and garden are on a slope the toilets are at the front of the house at the low end of the slope and the kitchen is at the back of the house at the high end of the slope. Garden all round.

Stands to reason the drains flow from the back (high) to the front (low) but the only tiny drain cover we can find is the one at the high end, nowhere near the toilets.

The toilets have been flushing ok as long as you leave at least 5 mins between flushes but the downstairs toilet hand basin holds water a lot. It can take 20 mins to drain away.

Daughter has just had a bubble bath (bathroom upstairs). I went into the downstairs loo to be met with a cascade of bubbles coming out of the pan!

Surely if there was an actual block then things wouldn't be ok sometimes?

The other thing is, that I do feel as if the problem is slightly better when the weather is freezing and the ground is solid, and when it gets milder, the problem gets worse. Is that even feasible? :undecided

It's a very old property that suffered from subsidence previously. That issue was dealt with, but the resulting internal damage (cracks in walls etc were not dealt with properly in some places and not at all in others. The house hasn't been looked after well, only enough and no more and I'm told it lay empty for a long time before we started renting it. I'm genuinely concerned that the drains are in a state and we we will end up paying handsomely to repair them.

So if anyone has any other ideas before I have to bite the bullet and get the LL involved.......?