Stop !!!! issue.

cyclonebri1

Not a problem, not a rant, but just a topic to show how a plumber can have issues pricing a simple job.
I'm not a plumber.
But I can do most stuff with few issues.

Today at my aging mothers house I went to fix the extractor fan and fit a new syphon and handle to the WC.
No big deal, £25 for all the extractor parts and £9 for the bog internals.
Used the timer from the dead fan to save money and all was well an hour later.

Toilet then.

Both screws securing the cistern to the wall where corroded so badly that only mole grips and 20 mins work could remove them.

Stop cork, totally seized in almost the fully on position.
10 mins spent working this back a forward until both extremities of the cork sheared off and I stopped before the valve sheared internally and I had a real issue.

Went outside to the WA stop cork.

Jueeeeees, lifted lid and 2 halfbricks totally blocking the drop to the stopcock.

Smashed out with a lump hammer and chisel.
Now 6" below kerb/ground level.

An hour later all 6ft 6" of me is up to the armpits in brick ends, stone and other crap, none of which could have gone through the cover, this was screwed when the council last resurfaceded the pavement.

3ft down and out of my depth.

Call to water board. Took 40 mins
They have an inspector in the area.
He's there an 1 1/2hr later

But, it's too far buried for his tools.

He calls assistance, men arrive.

They want to blast wash the crap out of the down pipe, seems the answer to me.

But NO, there is a street light only a metre away, on the kerb right up to the property boundary.

They can't risk forcing water into the electrics.

They want to dig the whole lot out to access the stop cork.

However someone has contacted the local council, their man arrives.

They are informed they cannot dig near the lamp until the post is secured with braces to prevent the thing falling into the street.

Ok, it seems like health and safety gone mad but it just goes to show how such a simple job can go considerably teets up.
Glad I'm not in business, ;)

They are due back Friday

keystone

Thank you for that. Let that be a salutory lesson to some keyboard warriors who loudly proclaim its soooo easy. Some people will still moan though about "rip-off merchants".

For those that are unaware when the water is finally isolated then thats a good time to fit one of these:



on the feedpipe to the cistern if you don't already have one and if the stopcock is knackered it can legally be replaced with one of these:



sometimes if the stopck can be shutoff just enough to slow the water to a trickle and you are worried about it then fit one of the above downstream from the stopcock and never have to touch the other again.

Cheers

Barneysmom

Blimey what a day Op!
Hope you get it sorted out
Just a thought, is that freezer spray and good?

keystone

Not unless you want to get very, very wet. Never in a month on Sundays on a mains presure pipe and only with serious circumspection on a low pressure pipe.

Cheers

southcoastrgi

Barneysmom wrote: »

Just a thought, is that freezer spray and good?

nope like KS said they are carp, even the so call professional versions with bigger bottles & a fishing scale to constantly weigh them, but of course you could do what i have done a number of years ago & bought an electric pipe freezer now that will freeze anything upto 42mm (given time) but of course the only down side is it cost me £750

good job you weren't re-washering a ballvalve CY

cyclonebri1

Luckily it's not desperate, no leaks just the toilet siphon erratic and has had too many diaphragms to bother again.

And no it didn't have an isolation valve fitted, but it dam well will shortly;)


Interestingly when I told the guy on the end of the phone that I was 3 ft down and hadn't reached the darn thing he said it wasn't unusual for the council to "miss" the SC when installing the down pipe :eek::eek::mad::mad:

Title looks ridiculous due the swear filter not liking stop cork , but can't edit title

Jaynne

Blimey all that just to change the toilet internals. Makes me so glad that when I had to move our stopcock that I just opened the hatch on the road and found that it was a nice new plastic fitting that turned easily. I was expecting horrors like the above given that this is a 1930s house.

cyclonebri1

Jaynne wrote: »

Blimey all that just to change the toilet internals. Makes me so glad that when I had to move our stopcock that I just opened the hatch on the road and found that it was a nice new plastic fitting that turned easily. I was expecting horrors like the above given that this is a 1930s house.

This is a 1960's bungalow, trouble is the 1990's wasn't a good vintage for council pavement tarmac layers:D:D

cyclonebri1

Fixed in 10 mins today by a ground level water auth worker with a "spoon on a 5 foot stick", :T:T:T

keystone

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

This is a 1960's bungalow, trouble is the 1990's wasn't a good vintage for council pavement tarmac layers

You'm not kidding. Never had to use the company stopcock for my house but when next door moved in the loacl water co insisted they had a meter. I was concerned one day to arrive home and find two likely lads fitting a meter in the chamber where I thought "my" (well the water co's but you know what I mean) stopcock was. Anyway the long and short of it is that it wasn't mine at all. Mine was under several inches of tarmac and had apparently been so for over thirty years.:eek: Water Co had to come and dig for it to actually find it 'cos they didn't know where it was. Good job I hadn't needed it.

Cheers