Water soaking brickwork from neighbour's leaking toilet

robgoingcrazy

DaftyDuck wrote: »

I did suggest at one point turning your water off at the mains... preferably on a dry day (so that rules out the next couple). If you could persuade your neighbour to do the same, firstly overlapping for a few hours, then yours on and his off.... That'd at least rule in/out a mains source of water, and from whom it comes...
Are you on a water meter? That'd also show almost any leak. They are really, really sensitive, and mine will pick up a slow dripping tap. If neighbour also has a water meter, and it's in the street, you can always peek at his too...particularly in the middle of the night, when he's unlikely to be having a shower, flushing the loo, or having a coffee.... slow, steady change on the meter.... That damn water has to come from you, him, or some cloud-based deity or other!

I do want to try this, mine first at least... Though water mains are at front, we don't have water meters.

My neighbour works shifts so is often up at 3am making tea lol...

If I turn my water off overnight, is it safe to turn off my boiler mains switch overnight too (otherwise it will be doing its maintenance cycles without any water and possibly blowing up?!)

robgoingcrazy

So is it OK to turn the water off but leave the boiler on, or do I need to turn the boiler off? It's a combi boiler, I know the CH is a closed system, but not sure if it needs to draw water for the hot tap when it does it's maintenance cycles?

Not much point doing it at the moment as it's been raining pretty much constantly since Saturday so is impossible to tell which water is from where as everywhere is wet... and as soon as it starts to dry off to have a look, it rains again, and again...

Ruski

Combi won't use water unless you turn on a hot tap - even then with the boiler off it won't do any harm.

HTH

Russ

robgoingcrazy

Ruski wrote: »

Combi won't use water unless you turn on a hot tap - even then with the boiler off it won't do any harm.

HTH

Russ

Thanks Russ, had already taken the plunge and switched the thing off. I had to have it switched off for half a day when my gas fire was installed so doubt it will do any harm, not using it for heating anyway at moment. So boiler off and water off, and drained all the water out via taps.

It's been off for about 2 hours, I swear it looks like the bricks there are starting to dry up. I could hear the dripping sound before, but can't hear it now, but my hearing is a little worn so for all I know I may be imagining things, also I am working in torchlight at the moment.

The question is, if it turns out it's connected to my plumbing after all, what is the comeback over British Gas's negligence - whose bloke said it was impossible it was anything to do with my plumbing. Still not sure it is, will need to leave water off another while yet, but who covers the damage caused by not fixing it when I called them out (and not even investigating it) and the consequential damage to my neighbour's destroyed bathroom, not to mention the cost of getting another person out to look at it (who to be fair came to the same conclusion)?

Interesting, but I will wait and see what happens over the next few hours, have got bottled water to make a cup of tea and do some work, I just hope it doesn't start raining again

Sorry I didn't do this earlier, I mentioned it to the experts I had in but they didn't seem to see much mileage in the idea...

So if it is me do I need to start thinking about insurance too, I suppose if I am going to claim for this I might as well claim for the stolen wall job as well... Will hang fire, wait and see...

robgoingcrazy

Started to rain

However the brick at the bottom in the gap between the extension and my wall is always glistening with water, as I couldn't be sure it was drying have mopped it all up with some kitchen towel, so it's currently dry.

Will see if it stays dry or not, it's reasonably protected from direct rain, then I will turn the water back on and see if that makes a difference. Could do with washing my hands after poking around in the wall but will wait!

It's chucking it down again for the 5th day in a row... So there is a bit of water appearing but it might be bits of rain blown or splashing in there over time or it might not, of course I can't listen for the dripping sound as the rain is making such a racket... Will give it another hour but don't think I am going to get anything conclusive until there's a dry day

Put water back on, so wet out there there's no way to tell.

I will have to wait for a dry 24 hours and report back...

robgoingcrazy

I went out again just now, couldn't tell much, however shining torch around I could see there is water bobbing around down the drain (the one in the pictures).

Should it have water in there or should it all drain away? Been raining heavy, so maybe still a possibility it's coming from underneath if it's not draining away? Just not sure what it's supposed to be like when you shine a torch down but I can see water.

bricks don't seem any different since I turned the water back on.

Where's Scooby Doo when you need him

JohnB47

robgoingcrazy wrote: »

I went out again just now, couldn't tell much, however shining torch around I could see there is water bobbing around down the drain (the one in the pictures).

Should it have water in there or should it all drain away? Been raining heavy, so maybe still a possibility it's coming from underneath if it's not draining away? Just not sure what it's supposed to be like when you shine a torch down but I can see water.

bricks don't seem any different since I turned the water back on.

Where's Scooby Doo when you need him

Your drain will almost certainly have an s bend, so you looking down on it is like looking down on your toilet - you are seeing the water in the bend. Perfectly normal.

I think you need to wait until it's not raining and the ground is reasonably dry before you try turning off your water again. I would go for a dry still day and listen for those drips before and after turning off the water.

robgoingcrazy

JohnB47 wrote: »

Your drain will almost certainly have an s bend, so you looking down on it is like looking down on your toilet - you are seeing the water in the bend. Perfectly normal.

I think you need to wait until it's not raining and the ground is reasonably dry before you try turning off your water again. I would go for a dry still day and listen for those drips before and after turning off the water.

Yeah good thinking, I could hear a dripping sound again when I went out, but am now wondering if it was actually water dripping from the drainpipe into the drain, which is possible. Hard to tell as near a main road so won't be both quiet and light until the summer...

I will pray for a dry day at some point, it has to stop raining sooner or later!

robgoingcrazy

Nothing but heavy rain again all day, it's been going on for a week now :mad:

One thing is puzzling me, in terms of the pipes that can be seen from my pics:





So I have the two drain pipes in picture one coming out of my wall, the one on the right has water coming out when I run the kitchen sink taps. I don't know what the other one is for, even though it comes out of my wall (perhaps for a washing machine once upon a time?).

When I run my bathroom taps nothing comes out of anywhere. Would it all come out of the big black pipe or is that just for the toilet? Oddly enough the neighbour's house has two smaller drainpipes coming out further along from where the big soil pipe (mine, but already seemingly some way into the neighbour's house) is situated, surely one of those can't be mine? But otherwise I can't figure out where the bath and bathroom sink taps drain out to? Surely they wouldn't be directed on to someone's property way over on the other side?

All seems a bit odd but I don't know much about these things does anyone have a clue where my bathroom water is draining out to?!

As my neighbour said, it looks like Mickey Mouse built these houses Or at least his Victorian cousin Master Mickey...

DaftyDuck

Can you at least trace where the pipework goes within your house? Presumably your bog is on the outside wall (you back to that wall when ... enough said). The bathroom sink, shower(?) and bath could all drain into the loo outlet - that's common. It'd be rare for the connections to be made to the thick loo pipe inside the house.... From your earlier photos, I can't see that you have a rear bathroom window... in fact, I'm not sure where your bathroom is... or where the divide between the two properties is, to be honest.... so that explains your username, at least!

I'm guessing you have quite a small (narrow) bathroom, that it occupies half the rear wall, with no window, and that the sink/bath waste is draining onto neighbours property from the lower rightmost of the two pipes over the flat roof. Again, it is possible for a connection in these pipes to come undone in the thickness of a wall (or a similar split/crack to develop).

So, without meaning to hasten your approaching mental meltdown, how are things in the bathroom???? No, I mean, how are things laid out in the bathroom? Is the potty your side, with bath/sink on the dividing wall between you and neighbour? Or set further forward into your house?

Don't get too stressed about this (hah, as if!)... it's gone on for ages and nothing has yet collapsed. If it takes a week for dry weather and a month to sort out, it's unlikely to kill anyone or cause the house to collapse!