Investigating bath leak - advice!

roxalana

Hi all,

We have been in our new house (FTBs) nearly 2 weeks. The bath drained slowly which we assumed was related to about 4 feet of blond hair left by the previous occupant we managed to pull out. We had plans to see if we could bend a bit of wire this weekend to try and fish some more out but tonight, after my bath, we decided to plunge...

... and somehow it managed to dislodge the waste pipe entirely and flooded the bathroom!

OH has put the wastepipe back on (which had no hair in it) but the water doesn't drain well still and now I don't trust it!

Also, the bathroom floor looks like it used to be a wetroom - the tiles show evidence of there having been a previous shower that is no longer there and there is a plughole in the corner of the floor. When the bathroom flooded it darned well didn't go down that plughole which seems to also be blocked!

Eventually we will get a plumber as we want to install a shower (in an enclosure, not wetroom style) but ideally we don't want to until we can afford that - what investigations can some relative DIY novices do to check out what is going on?

blackshirtuk

probably gunged up at any bend/junction.

Can you see outside where the pipe comes out of the wall from the bathroom?

there could be an access that you could use to try unblocking further down the pipe.

SailorSam

If the waste pipe hasn't a very big drop, water may have almost sat in it rather than running away and this can come gunged up over time with soap,.
I agree with blackshirt if you can see where the pipe comes out of the wall, start there.

bobthedambuilder

I obviously don't know the layout of the bathroom, but here's a thought. I would agree that there's a strong possibility that it's a lack of fall in the bath outlet which is causing your problem. But you have a ready-made outlet which could be at a lower level than the bath outlet - the plughole in the corner of the room. Any way of connecting the bath to this?

ormus

yes be careful about the fall of any waste pipe, esp under a bath. i often see pipes with a rise in the middle.

phill99

There is a product that the trade use called 'Melt'. It is available from plumbers merchants and is like Mr Muscle but about 1000 times stronger.

It clears all organic waste and could be a starting point on clearing everything out.

SailorSam

In my last house i had the same problem of the sink not draining and no matter what i put down to clear it nothing helped. When i took off the bath panel it looked like in the Ormus photo, the pipe was solid with sludge, obviously built up over the years. I wasn't able to get the pipe out 'cos it must have been fitted before the bath went in and so in the end got a baby hacksaw and cut it into a few smaller pieces. And the new pipe went in the same way, a few smaller sections with simple push-on straight connectors. Very easy and cheap to do, while i was doing it i altered the fall by a couple of inches to save it happening again.