Weekly Flylady Thread 26 August 2024

Honey_Bear

It's a smell Piggers.  I can't find any evidence of a leak.  Everything is dry and dusty behind the boxing.  I like the idea of coloured water being flushed through the system though so thanks for that.

pigpen

Honey_Bear said:

It's a smell Piggers.  I can't find any evidence of a leak.  Everything is dry and dusty behind the boxing.  I like the idea of coloured water being flushed through the system though so thanks for that.

HAVE YOU TRIED THE DRAINBUSTER? oops.. caplock..soz.. the mr muscle one was always good.. there is a dirt cheap one for £1land/bnM.. in a big orange round bottle..This one .. it has never failed our very hairy blocked drains.. it just dissolves everything.. and a drain-snake I do tend to try a large amount of washing up liquid followed by a lot of boiling water..

My front room is a bear pit.. but the fridge is sparkly.

pigpen

Honey_Bear said:

It's a smell Piggers.  I can't find any evidence of a leak.  Everything is dry and dusty behind the boxing.  I like the idea of coloured water being flushed through the system though so thanks for that.

HAVE YOU TRIED THE DRAINBUSTER? oops.. caplock..soz.. the mr muscle one was always good.. there is a dirt cheap one for £1land/bnM.. in a big orange round bottle..This one .. it has never failed our very hairy blocked drains.. it just dissolves everything.. and a drain-snake I do tend to try a large amount of washing up liquid followed by a lot of boiling water..

My front room is a bear pit.. but the fridge is sparkly.

Valli

I was going to suggest the same, i’ve just used it on my bathroom sink and it’s done the job.

Just woken up (!!!) so i’m having my vertical half hour.  i need to go in and clean an area at work, get washing on the line but other than that no plans until i attack the grass later, when, hopefully the sun and wind will have done some blowing and drying. Migh5 wash the car…

roundtuit

Morning all xx 

I'm up, dressed, made my bed, eaten breakfast,  supped two brews,  completed Wordle,  managed two lines on Connections,  fed the birds, put out the rubbish and recycling,  put new bin bags in bins,  WULTD,  and set washing swishing. 

And breathe.....

P& S are calling on their way home from town this morning. This evening I'm going over to DS's for a pizza and movie night. Tis a social whirl 🤣

To Do Next
Fill birdbath & hedgehog's dish 
Water hanging basket 
DUPA 

Need to cool down first. Isit hot? Or isit me?

Rxx

pigpen

fml ... Twinkle is back at school Tuesday... I thought it was Wednesday.. I've lost a WHOLE DAY of holidays!!! *CRYYYYYY* I hate school runs.

Cupboard on the wall.. OH cleaning WM filters.. I've run the left WM through 7 clean cycles and it is still churning out greasy ickiness.. I don't know what else to throw in it! I'm not using soda crystals.. they floofed the machine last time I used those...

Tesc0 food shop before OH fritters his wages on rubbish like car tax and phone bill .. Collect stuff from DD1 and take Spams specs to be fixed.. collect prescriptions.. post parcel.. Asd@ parcels being delivered..

I can't do this without being medicated today.. that's always risky..

pigpen

METER READINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Honey_Bear

This is a proper full-on rant because I've gone a very long way beyond my limits this week and I don't know how to salvage this weekend.  Or myself.

Thanks for the suggestions but the drains aren't blocked.  The drains are all draining fine - bath/shower, sink and loo.  All good.  If we pee there is no smell.  If we do anything else in the loo the smell gets stronger and stronger during the day and then fades overnight.  Somewhere in the system, on the lower part of the bathroom drainage system there is a crack or a split in a pipe and the smell emanates from that.  We've got a shower room in the house with a perfectly functioning loo, so we can use that when necessary, but that doesn't help find the problem in the en suite.  The smell does not emanate from above the traps under the plugs/u-bends.  It is coming from lower down the system.  There is no evidence of a leak in the ceiling below the en suite, or damp below the pipes anywhere on the system.  As I said, there is no blockage, everything is draining just fine.

The bath/shower drain has a separate drain pipe which runs into the soil pipe where it turns the corner from pretty much horizontal to vertical about 2m from the bath drain. 

The sink drain feeds directly into the soil pipe from the loo, immediately under the sink, which is on the way to where the soil pipe goes vertical.

About three weeks ago a plumber fitted a new washer to a bathroom sink tap because it was dripping.  The access point to turn the water to the sink taps is under the sink, above the soil pipe from the loo.  I strongly suspect that because access is incredibly tight under there he nudged the sink drain pipe and something split somewhere but I cannot for the life of me find where the problem actually is.  There is very little space in that area of the en suite and access to all of it is like doing keyhole surgery.

I put paper towels underneath the whole length of the soil pipe, which meant destroying all of the boxing at the back of my wardrobe which was a hassle and a faff.  I ran the sink for ages, we both showered - nothing.  After a couple of weeks of all of my shoes, boots and general foot gibble strewn all over the place I put it all back.  The cupboard's a mess but all the foot gibble is off the floor and out of sight because I was sick of it all cluttering the place up.

Yesterday I wrapped every inch that i could get to of the sink drain pipe in paper towels, packing tape it and then putting clingfilm around it to keep the leak damp in, along with the two joints in the soil pipe that accommodate the sink downpipe, and I'm leaving that there for a week before removing it to see if there's any leakage anywhere.  If I'm right it's a tiny, almost invisible crack or split that is causing the problem and I'm hoping that there will be evidence of it on the paper towels. 

If I'm wrong I have absolutely no other ideas to find the problem.

The plumber we like who we've used for 25 years, who runs the business and who sent a minion to do the washer originally, is frantically busy working for landlords getting student accommodation ready for the arrival of this year's intake and the second and third years.  There are 35,000 students at the two universities in the city, and only about 5% of that number are in purpose built accommodation so there are an awful lot of landlords needing his services.  If I can track down where the problem is he'll come and fix it tout suite (pun intended) but he's reluctant to take anyone off their student accommodation work to try to find where the problem is and I totally understand why. And as he's pointed out, he'll only do what I'm doing, but at some expense.

I've gone into a lot of detail because I'm beyond frustrated by this scenario, while I'm trying to spring clean the whole house for something that's happening in later September and I'm sick to death of trying to solve problems not of my making.  The lunch with the neighbour this week was the tipping point - being expected to solve other people's problems has got to me and I'm exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally.  There appear to be a lot of people around me who need support and no !!!!!! to help when things aren't that easy for me to solve.  I'm just so tired of it all.

\rant over 

I'm now going to do something I want to do, have been wanting to do for a month and have only managed to spend three hours on this week.  I need a bit of self-indulgence.

lookbook

Honey_Bear said:

This is a proper full-on rant because I've gone a very long way beyond my limits this week and I don't know how to salvage this weekend.  Or myself.

Thanks for the suggestions but the drains aren't blocked.  The drains are all draining fine - bath/shower, sink and loo.  All good.  If we pee there is no smell.  If we do anything else in the loo the smell gets stronger and stronger during the day and then fades overnight.  Somewhere in the system, on the lower part of the bathroom drainage system there is a crack or a split in a pipe and the smell emanates from that.  We've got a shower room in the house with a perfectly functioning loo, so we can use that when necessary, but that doesn't help find the problem in the en suite.  The smell does not emanate from above the traps under the plugs/u-bends.  It is coming from lower down the system.  There is no evidence of a leak in the ceiling below the en suite, or damp below the pipes anywhere on the system.  As I said, there is no blockage, everything is draining just fine.

The bath/shower drain has a separate drain pipe which runs into the soil pipe where it turns the corner from pretty much horizontal to vertical about 2m from the bath drain. 

The sink drain feeds directly into the soil pipe from the loo, immediately under the sink, which is on the way to where the soil pipe goes vertical.

About three weeks ago a plumber fitted a new washer to a bathroom sink tap because it was dripping.  The access point to turn the water to the sink taps is under the sink, above the soil pipe from the loo.  I strongly suspect that because access is incredibly tight under there he nudged the sink drain pipe and something split somewhere but I cannot for the life of me find where the problem actually is.  There is very little space in that area of the en suite and access to all of it is like doing keyhole surgery.

I put paper towels underneath the whole length of the soil pipe, which meant destroying all of the boxing at the back of my wardrobe which was a hassle and a faff.  I ran the sink for ages, we both showered - nothing.  After a couple of weeks of all of my shoes, boots and general foot gibble strewn all over the place I put it all back.  The cupboard's a mess but all the foot gibble is off the floor and out of sight because I was sick of it all cluttering the place up.

Yesterday I wrapped every inch that i could get to of the sink drain pipe in paper towels, packing tape it and then putting clingfilm around it to keep the leak damp in, along with the two joints in the soil pipe that accommodate the sink downpipe, and I'm leaving that there for a week before removing it to see if there's any leakage anywhere.  If I'm right it's a tiny, almost invisible crack or split that is causing the problem and I'm hoping that there will be evidence of it on the paper towels. 

If I'm wrong I have absolutely no other ideas to find the problem.

The plumber we like who we've used for 25 years, who runs the business and who sent a minion to do the washer originally, is frantically busy working for landlords getting student accommodation ready for the arrival of this year's intake and the second and third years.  There are 35,000 students at the two universities in the city, and only about 5% of that number are in purpose built accommodation so there are an awful lot of landlords needing his services.  If I can track down where the problem is he'll come and fix it tout suite (pun intended) but he's reluctant to take anyone off their student accommodation work to try to find where the problem is and I totally understand why. And as he's pointed out, he'll only do what I'm doing, but at some expense.

I've gone into a lot of detail because I'm beyond frustrated by this scenario, while I'm trying to spring clean the whole house for something that's happening in later September and I'm sick to death of trying to solve problems not of my making.  The lunch with the neighbour this week was the tipping point - being expected to solve other people's problems has got to me and I'm exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally.  There appear to be a lot of people around me who need support and no !!!!!! to help when things aren't that easy for me to solve.  I'm just so tired of it all.

\rant over 

I'm now going to do something I want to do, have been wanting to do for a month and have only managed to spend three hours on this week.  I need a bit of self-indulgence.

Looking after yourself is a priority.

pigpen

HB .. it may be a hairline crack  but it could still be a blockage further down.. this is what we have had with ours.. where the soil pipe goes into the ground it was blocked there and everything drained fine to that point and trickled through the blockage but never enough to stop things draining properly inside the house.. the minor blockage caused a bigger blockage over time with slow moving water causing a build up of limescale and soap.. do you have drain cover/home emergency cover with your utilities or house insurance? I had BG homecare for years and now have it included with my utility bundle.. it is then just a call out fee.. which I agree is frustrating when you didn't cause the issue.. ours came out with a camera and whizzed it along and discovered this issue.. the issue was initially caused by next foor fitting en suite rooms and them getting rubble in the water system which then gathered at the point mine entered the main sewage pipe and it backed up both sides from there.. blooming nightmare! 
You need to take some time for yourself by the sounds of it.. ((hugs))

The drugged knee pain has made my head fluffy... I can't remember half my list of stuff..

Dots school shoes arrived.. Meems b-day present being delivered later today for her birthday in December.. .. I have school bags, lunch bags and cat food on their way.. I checked start dates for back to school, did meter reads (£138 for the months.. not too awful I guess) .. Twinkle banished for a bath.. Pixie needs to sort her dance and swimming bags.

B00ts.. DD1's to pick up and drop off various items.. opticians..Tesc0.. back to DD1 if they have fixed Spams specs.. Then the front room HAS to be tidied.. it is a total bear pit.

Kitchen cupboard is still attached to the wall.. I want 3-4 85cm wooden shelves for the kitchen to house plants and various tut which is cluttering the sides.. OH is tidying tupperware and I have a trutex return (school shirts to return) and I think we have school sorted and can move on to sorting christmas..