Toilet trouble

hampshirebabe

The toilet waste pipe goes through wall, the manhole is a few feet away, there doesn't seem to be a blockage from that end, and 3 other flats empty into it separately too. I'll look at the roof tomorrow, but I don't remember seeing anything sticking out of it. The upstairs flat hasn't got any problems with the toilet. 

stragglebod

Anything shared with other freehold properties is the water company's job to sort out. Anything shared within the freehold property will either be the freeholder's or your landlord's job to sort out, depending on the terms of the lease.

hampshirebabe

We have a peppercorn rent on our leasehold, but the company went bancrupt, so there's no one to sort anything anyway. 

Rosa_Damascena

hampshirebabe said:

We have a peppercorn rent on our leasehold, but the company went bancrupt, so there's no one to sort anything anyway. 

Where does the freehold sit now then? With a bank?

Homer_home

The vent for the toilet waste is in your first pic , it is the grey one , the topmost one, which is the one you believe it is

It is the weirdest vent pipe I have seen quite frankly and is a proper bodge!

The problem you have is which no one seems to have noticed is you have an upstairs neighbour who will use the same soil stack only higher up which means if it is the soil stack giving you issues your neighbour would be having the same problems too 

hampshirebabe

Homer_home said:

The vent for the toilet waste is in your first pic , it is the grey one , the topmost one, which is the one you believe it is

It is the weirdest vent pipe I have seen quite frankly and is a proper bodge!

The problem you have is which no one seems to have noticed is you have an upstairs neighbour who will use the same soil stack only higher up which means if it is the soil stack giving you issues your neighbour would be having the same problems too 

Thanks, that's what I was thinking. So if there's a problem lower down the vent pipe, would that still cause the problem for me but hers would be OK? The solution I've seen mentioned is to run a hosepipe to it, so the water washes away the buildup, would that work do you think? I was thinking of asking the window cleaner to use his very longest pole. 

Homer_home

I'm not convinced it's the soil stack , using a hose pipe is not powerful enough you need to pressure wash it , you would get more pressure flushing the toilet 

Normally the problem you describe is because of a blocked manhole I would in the first instance get the water board on the case to check the drains , this won't cost you anything and will at least tell you were the blockage is not 

[Deleted User]

Homer_home said:

I'm not convinced it's the soil stack , using a hose pipe is not powerful enough you need to pressure wash it , you would get more pressure flushing the toilet 

Normally the problem you describe is because of a blocked manhole I would in the first instance get the water board on the case to check the drains , this won't cost you anything and will at least tell you were the blockage is not 

Agree with this, not that i knew what a soil stack was till i read this but from my experience every 6 months since moving into this house 6 yrs ago. 

 Water board come out, poke around down the shared sewer from the manhole in the garden. Sometimes get a powerful suction hose on it and its sorted for a few months. 

 If its a shared sewer costs you nothing its the water board's responsibility. 

hampshirebabe

Thanks I'll try that, but if it was in the shared pipe wouldn't my neighbours be having trouble too? 

[Deleted User]

hampshirebabe said:

Thanks I'll try that, but if it was in the shared pipe wouldn't my neighbours be having trouble too? 

 Not necessarily. Various neighbours call them out to our street and ive had the water board knock here asking to access the sewer due to neighbours downstairs loo overflowing. Wasn't any issue like that with my loo but they had to pump the sewer in every garden.