Disastrous Bathroom Refit

[Deleted member 15266]

Help. Plumber came to replace my wash basin and bath at the weekend.

Took a bath on Saturday night and nearly flooded the house. The plastic pipe from the bath that fees into the cast iron waste pipe had Plumbers Mate round it and the water just poured through. The plastic pipe is quite a bit narrower than the cast iron pipe it feeds into. Husband rushed down to diy store and they said the only way you can seal this is with Plumbers Mate as there isn't an adaptor available. Husband has put lots more of this stuff around the pipe but this doesn't seem right to me.

Also the outlet for the plug hole is leaking and the sink is leaking. Plumber came again last night and was supposed to have fixed it. Haven't dared try the bath yet but the sink is ltill leaking. He also removed two tiles in order to fix the bath to the wall with brackets supplied - I thought they would have gone under the bath? Now the size of the tiles 8 x 6 I think doesn't seem to be available any more and I may need to re-tile my bathroom. I'm so depressed. Do you think I should get this guy back or phone an emergency plumber to come and sort it all out?

 

[oilman]

DON'T get an emergency plumber, they really know how to empty your bank account.

You will probably have to accept tiling is seperate from plumbing, and a tiler will generally do a better job.

Get the guy back, and try not to give him a hard time, he might have mucked up, but beating him up before he does the job will not put him in the right frame of mind, and it will cost you if anyone else does it.. If he doesn't want to do it, sue him.

If and when he fixes it, ask for a demo that it doesn't leak.

Was he cheaper than the others?

 

[Deleted member 15266]

He is a friend who is a full-time plumber, unfortunately he has now gone down South to work until the weekend. As we've no shower at the moment we really need the bath.

 

[ChrisR]

Plumbers Mate might hold it for a while but I wouldn't stake anything on it! There ARE proper connectors for every sort of pipe, though some people seem unable to find them.

 

[brumylad]

sounds about right considering the quality of fittings available today.

Who made the hole in the cast iron stack ? this is the root of the problem. You could always just re-root the waste pipe out through the wall into an open hopper if there is one. This would contravene current building regs but millions of homes built in the past were plumbed like this, and today this drainage method can still be seen to function reasonably well even after all those years.

Just today I inherited a problem. Asked to clean out drainage for slow emptying double kitchen sinks. Bottle trap full of hard fat /hair. Had to remove to clean properly, guess what ? some kind of continental waste fitting on the sinks, traps had been stuck on using copious silicone. I hate silicone. Spent fifteen minutes modifying the uk spec traps with a stanley knife to get them to fit. Fixing the bath as he has done is fairly standard.

 

[doitall]

Who made the hole in the cast iron stack ? this is the root of the problem.

Manufacturer I would have thought.

Can I assume its a tee piece for waste pipes to go into and the size please

 

[DIWHY]

Anyone leaving a job in that state does not qualify as;

A friend
or
A plumber

 

[doitall]

Anyone leaving a job in that state does not qualify as;

A friend
or
A plumber

Never had a leak or a problem then.

Good plumbers are the ones that sort any problem with the minimum of fuss, I assume that applies to friends that maybe doing it on the cheap as well.

Cowboys are the ones that take your money and run

 

[kevplumb]

thanks for the grand DIA

can i have my oss back pleeeeeese

 

[AdamW]

I've seen it written by plumbers on here: you spend however long at plumbing school working on copper feeds and plastic waste. Then you enter "the real world" and find that people haven't always used PVC and copper.

Could it be that the plumber friend is newly qualified or has only worked on new-build stuff, so is not experienced in the ways of cast iron, lead and majick?

Debbie, he is your friend so obviously you don't want to make him feel bad. There is nothing stopping you from getting a more experienced plumber in who can deal with cast iron and make it all perfect. You don't have to tell your friend if you don't want to.

However, he won't learn anything if you pretend like it all went swimmingly. He might then go and do a job for a non-friend customer, thinking his plumbers' mait approach works, and then finds himself getting sued. There's about 200 litres of water in an average bath, that can ruin a lot of house if it goes anywhere but the waste pipes.

I know that if I messed up at work, I would rather know about it so I could find out what I had done wrong.

 

[kevplumb]

DIA or ADAM

what's a sqirrel or a squirrel tail

 

[ChrisR]

You serious kev? Temporary collar for constraining molten lead when you do CI joints. There's magic goo these days but lead is cheaper!

 

[AdamW]

DIA or ADAM

Damn, you got me

 

[doitall]

DIA or ADAM

what's a sqirrel or a squirrel tail

It's what you wrapped around the cast iron pipe when pouring the moulton lead after caulking with tarrred twine.

no good for plastic mate

 

[ChrisR]

See, you don't have to be 119 years old to know these things. It obviously helps in dia's case though.