Before a pedestal sink takes its place, the wall behind it needs to be shored up to hold its weight. Then the installation goes easy.

To install a pedestal sink you need the following material:

• Adjustable wrench
• Electric drill
• Hacksaw
• Measuring tape
• Pedestal sink with mounting bracket
• P-trap, tailpiece, and slip-nut fittings
• Ratchet with sockets
• Scrap plywood or 2-x-10 for blocking
• Wood screws

Mounting the sink to the wall

After the wall is reinforced and repaired, the sink can be installed. Some sinks require a separate bracket that is installed first, but others mount directly to the wall. These directions are for a sink with a bracket. You can skip those steps if the sink you’re installing doesn’t have a bracket. Figure 1 shows a typical installation.

1. Position the bracket on the wall and use the bracket as a template to mark the location for the mounting lag bolts.

To find the exact location of the mounting bracket, consult the roughing-in dimensions provided by the manufacturer.

Make sure the bracket is level.

Pedestal sinks are hung on a wall bracket or secured directly to the wall and supported by the pedestal.

2. Drill pilot holes through the layout marks on the wall into the wall reinforcement.

Make the holes about 1/8 inch smaller than the lag bolts supplied by the manufacturer. Lag bolts are large screws with a square or hex head.

3. Install the bracket with the lag bolts.

4. Hang the basin on the wall bracket and then install the additional mounting screws to hold the sink to the bracket and wall.

If the sink does not have a mounting bracket, install it directly to the wall with the fasteners provided by the manufacturer.

5. Test-fit the pedestal, mark its location, and then move it safely out of the way.

Installing the P-trap

With the sink on the wall, you can now install the P-trap. The P-trap is the pipe that connects the sink to the house drain. The U-shape of this pipe is the trap that retains enough water to prevent sewer gases from entering the bathroom. The P-trap is adjustable and can slide up and down on the pipe leaving the sink drain. The other end of the P-trap can also slide in and out of the fitting on the wall.

To install the P-trap, you may have to cut the tailpiece that protrudes from the pop-up assembly if the P-trap doesn’t align with the drain that comes out of the wall.

Referring to Figure 2, follow these steps to install the P-trap:

• Slide the short side of the P-trap onto the tailpiece that drops down from the sink drain. Move the P-trap up or down to align the trap arm with opening in the wall.

Use a hacksaw to cut the tailpiece shorter whenever the P-trap can’t be moved higher up the tailpiece and the trap arm is below the wall drain fitting. Purchase a longer tailpiece whenever the P-trap is above the wall drain fitting when attached to the end of the tailpiece.

• Take the lower part of the P-trap apart and insert the trap arm into the wall drain fitting as far as it will go.
• Pull the trap arm out of the wall fitting until it aligns with the top of U-shaped portion of the trap.

If the trap arm comes completely out of the wall before it can be attached to the trap, purchase a longer trap arm. If the rap arm is in the wall fitting as far as it will go and extends past the U-shaped part of the trap, cut it shorter with the hacksaw.

• Insert the trap arm back into the wall drain, move it into alignment with the trap, and thread on (but don’t tighten) the slip nut.
• When the trap parts are joined together, tighten the slip nuts on the tail piece and the wall drain fittings.

Attaching riser tubes to the faucet

After the P-trap is installed, you can turn your attention to attaching the riser tubes (supply lines) to the faucet tailpieces, using the compression nuts that came with the faucet. See Figure 2

The P-trap and riser tubes

The riser tubes connect the faucet to the stop valves. Here are a couple of pointers for attaching the tubes to the faucet:

• Snug up the nuts by hand
• Bend or loop the riser tubes so that they fit between the stop valves and the wall before tightening them with a wrench.

Finishing up

The moment of truth has arrived; you have to turn the water at the shut-off valves and the faucet and test for leaks in the supply lines and fittings leading to the faucet and in the drain lines and fittings. When everything is drip free, you can install the pedestal by simply positioning it properly beneath the sink and securing it to the floor with a wood screw.

Don’t over tighten the pedestal mounting screw because doing so may crack the pedestal base.

The pedestal is held in place with a wood screw.

Last, you can caulk any gaps or voids between the wall and the basin and remove any excess caulk with a wet rug.

Bath/shower mixer a shower spray

A shower spray combined with a bath mixer tap provides a shower for little more than the cost of the bath taps, and no extra plumbing is involved. The temperature is controlled through the bath taps, which may not be convenient, and will be affected by water being drawn off elsewhere in the home.

Hampshire Bath Shower Mixer

Power shower

An all-in-one shower which incorporates a powerful electric pump that boosts the rate that hot and cold water are supplied to the shower head from the storage cistern and the hot water cylinder. A power shower is unsuitable where water is supplied from a combination boiler under mains pressure. Removing waste water from a power shower fast enough can be a problem. The shower tray must cope with around 27 litres a minute, so it is probably worth fitting a 50mm waste pipe.

SAFETY WARNING

A showerhead on a hose must be fed through a retaining ring on the wall of the shower. This prevents the showerhead hanging in standing water in the bath or shower tray beneath and avoids potential contamination of the mains supply.

WETROOMS

A wet room consists of a WC, basin and shower area. No shower tray or enclosure is fitted and water drains through a central drain set in a sloping floor, so the whole room must be waterproofed. This is not a DIY job. Wet rooms may have a powerful thermostatic mixer shower and body jets or a shower tower.

Instantaneous electric shower

A wall unit plumbed in to a mains cold water supply, and heated by an electric element. The controls allow either less water at a higher temperature or more at a lower temperature, so the spray is weaker in winter when mains water is colder. Some models have a winter/summer setting. Designs fitted with a temperature stabiliser cannot run too hot or be affected by other taps in use. The unit must be wired to an electric power supply meeting Wiring Regulations requirements. This type of shower can be installed where a mixer would be illegal. Where mains water pressure is too low, a tank-fed pumped electric shower is available.

Shower tower

A wall unit that incorporates a thermostatic mixer shower with a number of adjustable body jets. Tower units also have a fixed showerhead and a hand-held spray, and may be designed to fit into a corner or on a flat wall. Some can be installed over a bath while others are made for cubicles or wet rooms. Most require a minimum ceiling height of 2.2m. A pump is usually needed to boost water pressure.

Manual and thermostatic mixers

These are wall units with hot and cold water supplies linked to a single valve. In a manual mixer, temperature and volume are controlled by one dial or separately. Thermostatic mixers are more expensive. Their temperature control has a built-in stabiliser so water cannot run too hot or too cold. Computerised models have a control panel to programme temperature and flow rates and can store the data for each user. Provided water is not supplied from a combination boiler under mains pressure, this type of shower can be linked to a pump to give power shower performance.

Economy Valve

Spray roses

Showerheads may be fixed or part of a handset on a flexible hose. The simplest have a single spray; multi-spray showerheads offer a choice of spray patterns selected by rotating the outer ring on the rose. Large diameter single spray showerheads offering a rain-style shower are also available.

Shower trays

GRP-reinforced acrylic trays are light to handle and not easily damaged. A reconstituted stone or resin shower tray is heavy, stable and durable, but the floor must be level before it is installed. Shower trays come in sizes from 700mm square and are usually 110-185mm high; low level 35mm trays are available for ‘walk-in’ showers. Quarter circle and pentangle trays help to save space.

During the Depression and the later post-World War II housing boom, construction shifted its orientation away from traditional laborintensive methods and toward more efficient assembly-line type production. This resulted in a lot more houses being built a lot more quickly and economically, but it also required a standardization of components, room sizes, and even house styles to keep pace with demand – just think of split-levels, ranches, and Levitown. In the same way that kitchens both benefited and suffered from this component-type approach, so too did bathroom suites. The primary goal of architects and builders seemed to be to squeeze as much utility as possible out of the least amount of space. These pared-down bathrooms were quick to install and didn’t require a lot of room or a squadron of specialty tradespeople, but they all began to look alike.

Only recently have bathrooms begun to break out of their conformist rut. Recent research into how bathrooms are really used by people (for example, Alexander Kira’s groundbreaking 1976 book The Bathroom) and a maturing of the bathroom industry itself (in particular, the leadership of the National Kitchen and Bath Association, or NKBA) have resulted in a reexamination of the conventional wisdom about what had become a somewhat neglected room. While economy and efficient construction are still important considerations, so too are the needs of the people who use the bathroom.

The new bathroom tradition goes beyond the utilitarian bathrooms of the recent past and takes advantage of both technology and tradition. It recognizes that people of all ages and abilities need to be able to safely, comfortably, and efficiently perform the basic tasks of body cleansing and elimination. But in addition, it recognizes that bathrooms have traditionally been a place to attend to the less tangible – but no less important – needs of personal well-being: a place for solitude and relaxation, for sensuous pleasure, and for ritual personal care and grooming. So, on one hand, bathrooms should perform like machines for living—the more efficient and functional they are, the better. They need to be easily maintained, easily cleaned, and well-thoughtout ergonomically. But on the other hand, bathrooms that are unpleasant environments – that are too cold or too hot, too bright or too dark, awkward or uncomfortable—fail to provide to their users the equally important qualities of comfort and pleasure. Finding the right balance is the key.
If you would like to view Victoriaplumb.com’s bathroom suite range please visit the following links:

• Bathroom Suites
• Toilets
• Basins

The idea of a room in a home dedicated to personal hygiene and grooming is, strictly speaking, a recent one. For the most part, houses built much before the turn of the century didn’t have bathrooms. So, in the span of about 100 years, the modern bathroom has evolved from a novelty into an almost-universal residential fixture. But there has always been a need for disposing of human waste, as well as a need for providing facilities for bathing and grooming. How those human needs evolved into the modern bathroom is a story about both technology and culture

The Englishman with the unfortunate surname, Thomas Crapper, often gets credit for inventing the flushing toilet, and he undoubtedly was a major player in its development. His valve-andsiphon design was patented in 1891, and his company manufactured water closets that found wide acceptance all over England in the decades preceding World War I. His toilets – imprinted with “T. Crapper Brass & Co., Ltd.” – inspired a generation of young American soldiers stationed in England during World War I, and they returned to America with a new slang term for the relatively new household fixture. But was Crapper the father of the so-called crapper?

Let’s put it this way: Crapper didn’t one day sit down in an outdoor privy and decide that what the world really needed was an indoor toilet. His product was simply another refinement of a design problem that the Victorians in particular had been puzzling over: how to build a flushing water closet that would efficiently and sanitarily remove waste without allowing dangerous sewer gases to enter. When Crapper refined his design, flushing water closets weren’t exactly a new idea. For example, Queen Elizabeth I’s godson Sir John Harrington had designed one for her use in 1596, although it never caught on with the rest of English society, royal or otherwise, and was considered to be more of a novelty than a practical invention, especially in the absence of an extensive sewer system.

Nonflushing water closets – portable pieces of furniture with removable containers for waste – became the standard in pre-Victorian England, though many households continued to rely on the backyard privy. The problem of waste disposal – whether from a chamber pot or from an overused hole in the ground – remained.

The Victorians made the connection between unsanitary conditions and disease that the Elizabethans hadn’t and developed municipal sewer systems to try to keep their cities cleaner. The problem was that they didn’t have a good way of connecting individual households to the system. Nonflushing water closets could be dressed up, but their contents couldn’t be taken out. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries (about the same time the sewers were built), English patents were granted for several different types of water-closet valves, but their flushing actions were pretty inefficient. The wall-mounted cistern that became popular in the 1870s vastly improved the situation because it provided a large volume of water under more pressure. Water-closet bowls remained a problem, though, because their rudimentary traps didn’t do a very good job of either letting waste go down the drain or keeping sewer gases out of the building. At first these bowls were made of earthenware and glazed with sometimes-elaborate designs. In 1885, Thomas Twyford built the first vitreous-china toilet, inspiring competition from other notable English potteries such as Wedgwood and Doulton; it wasn’t long before vitreous china became the standard for the fledgling industry.

American inventors were also seeking solutions to the problem of building a sanitary water closet. As early as 1875, James Henry and William Campbell patented a plunger-type water closet; over the next 50 or so years more than 350 applications for patents for various types of water-closet designs were received by the U.S. patent office. In 1907, Eljer Plumbingware Co. introduced the first American vitreous-china water closet, despite popular skepticism about the strength of a ceramic product for such a purpose.

With the invention of the sanitary flushable toilet – the fixture that made the modern bathroom possible – the crowded urban masses no longer needed to rely on chamber pots and open windows and backyards to dispose of their waste. Nor did they have to fear sewer gases like methane seeping back up into their homes and igniting explosively.

The first indoor bathrooms that were made possible by the refinement of the toilet were communal affairs shared by many people. Previously, water closets were portable, so a dedicated space for their use wasn’t necessary. More elaborate residences might have had a dedicated dressing room that contained a water closet, a moveable tin or iron bath, and a washstand, but this type of centralized “bathroom” didn’t become widespread until indoor plumbing and permanent water closets gained acceptance toward the end of the 19th century. Within a few short decades, the toilet became a permanent fixture as bathrooms proliferated and portable washstands and baths gave way to dedicated spaces. It didn’t take long for indoor plumbing to gain acceptance as a good idea, and by the 1920s, American building codes required indoor bathrooms in all new single-family residential construction.

Interestingly, the modern toilet and its associated plumbing was as much a response to urban industrialization as it was a result of the manufacturing technology that industrialization made possible. In a rural society, an indoor toilet may be a convenience, but it isn’t essential. In a crowded urban environment, however, the sanitary elimination of human waste becomes a real problem, and in the absence of sufficient soil to contain and break down human waste, water became the only other medium available to carry it away. The development of municipal sewage systems in London and Paris in the 18th and 19th centuries was a direct response to the threat of disease that came from increasing population densities and inadequate waste disposal. The modern world needed the modern toilet not so much for convenience but for its own survival.

Unfortunately, while 19th-century engineers refined the process of using water to flush away waste, people living in the 20th century found out that it wasn’t possible to just flush their problems completely away. Widespread contamination of large parts of the world’s freshwater supplies is one of the legacies of the modern flush toilet. So the evolution of the toilet continues, necessitated by the need to use less water and so place less of a demand on water resources. Perhaps the next revolution will occur in the development of waste-treatment systems that minimize our reliance on water. In the meantime, look for technology to become increasingly water-conscious, both in toilets and in other bathroom fixtures. The work begun by Thomas Crapper and the others isn’t over yet.

Beyond the bathroom toilet

If we think of the bathroom as simply a response to the practical need to manage human waste, then bathrooms have a pretty short 100-year or so history. But bathrooms of some sort existed long before the invention of the modern flushable toilet. Early on, man recognized the personal benefits of a cleansing soak in warm water. And in any society where people live in close proximity, personal hygiene is more than an issue of vanity.

In this regard, bathrooms – in the sense of a room that is devoted to bathing and personal care are as old as civilization itself. Evidence of sophisticated bathing facilities dating back to 2000 B.C. have been found in the palaces of Knossos and Phaistos on the island of Crete. Hittite houses in Anatolia (c. 1400 B.C.) contained paved washrooms with clay baths. The Greek cities of Pylos and Tiryns had bathrooms with water supply and drainage systems, and later Greek vase paintings indicate that the Greeks used showers. Bathhouses in India, common in palaces, monasteries, and some wealthy homes as early as 200 B.C., contained steam rooms, sitting areas, and swimming pools.

Of course, the Romans mastered the art of the bath. As early as the 3rd century B.C., elaborate baths were being included in the villas and townhouses of wealthy Romans. With separate rooms for damp and dry heat and warm and cold baths, the buildings were heated with hypocausts, furnaces with flues extending through the floors and walls of the building. The furnaces also heated boilers that supplied hot water. The public baths, or thermae, of imperial Rome expanded on the facilities of the smaller private baths and necessitated the construction of reservoirs and aqueducts to supply the enormous quantities of water needed. These baths were also heated by hypocausts and had dressing rooms, warm rooms, hot baths, steam rooms, recreation rooms, and cold baths. Hot-spring spas in farflung locations of the Roman Empire, such as Bath in England and Aix-les-Bains in France, are still in use today.

Some might argue that the bathing rituals of the Romans went too far, and in part the asceticism of the early Middle Ages was a reaction to the hedonism of imperial Rome that found such expression in their public bathhouses. Many of the early Christians took an entirely different viewpoint than the Romans about the body, regarding it as a place of sin to be conquered by the spirit. Dirt and disregard for excessive personal hygiene were regarded as appropriate responses to a sinful world, while bathing and personal luxury were regarded as excessively (or sinfully) indulgent – attitudes that to this day still find occasional expression in our culture. But as the plagues that periodically ravaged Europe during the Middle Ages demonstrated, personal hygiene plays a practical as well as a spiritual role.

In fact, despite the ascetic attitude toward bathing, centralized bathing facilities continued to exist in Europe. Many monasteries had fairly sophisticated systems to supply, distribute, and carry away water. Medieval castles and palaces generally incorporated a system of water supply and drainage, even if the sewage reservoir did happen to be the castle’s moat. Henry III’s (1217-1272) palace at Westminster had a bathhouse with hot and cold running water. And other cultures outside the western European tradition continued to regard bathing and personal hygiene as acceptable and culturally significant activities. Hammams, or public baths, have long been a fixture in Islamic society. And the Japanese have always regarded a long soak in a hot tubs both ritual and cleansing activity.

Early American settlers brought European attitudes toward bathing with them to the New World, continuing to view excessive bathing as an unnecessary indulgence. In part, this was because of the religious beliefs in some of the early colonies, but it was also a practical response to life on the frontier. However, by the middle of the 19th century there was a permanent tub in the White House, and bathing had evolved for many into a Saturday night ritual, whether they felt they needed it or not.

Originally, baths were unwieldy metal-lined wooden affairs that were brought into the kitchen for the weekly event and filled with hot water from the stove to be shared by everyone that needed a bath. But early enameled cast-iron baths began to appear in the second half of the 19th century, although demand for them was limited by their weight and the scarcity of dedicated bathroom spaces. These baths were – and still are – heavy. John M. Kohler, founder of the Kohler Co., got his start manufacturing cast-iron farm implements, but he saw an opportunity to sell to a new market. He modified a combination horse trough/hog scalder by enameling it and adding legs, then sold it as a bath to meet the growing demand for bathroom fixtures around the turn of the century.

So bathrooms evolved as a response to fundamental needs for personal hygiene, as well as an expression of available technology and cultural standards. And in the short half-century between 1875 and 1925 – the period of time between when indoor plumbing began to be widely available and when it became almost universal – our attitudes toward privacy and modesty changed significantly. What were once communal and family activities have become very personal and private activities. Whereas once single bathrooms served several families in urban apartment houses, now it is not unusual, nor even considered particularly extravagant, for households to have a bathroom for every bedroom.
If you would like to view Victoriaplumb.com’s extensive range of toilets please visit the following links:

• Close Coupled Toilets
• Wall Hung Toilets
• Back To Wall Toilets
• Wall Mounting Frames & Cisterns

TYPES OF PLASTIC PIPEWORK

Three types of plastic pipes are used for the water supply and heating installation in your house. chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CP\/Q, polybutylene (PB), and cross- linked polyethylene (PEX), pipes are tough and versatile enough for use as hot- and cold-water carriers, and also for central-heating systems.

The majority of bathroom waste pipes are made from polypropylene (PP) or acrolonitrate butadiene styrene (ABS for short). waste pipes are 32mm (1 Am), 40mm (1 kin) or 50mm (2 in). They are joined to traps and other components using compression fittings, which contain a flexible sealing ring that makes dismantling for the removal of any blockages an easy task. Correctly fitted, a plastic compression joint should only need to be hand- tightened to create a watertight seal. Polypropylene (PP) pipes are joined together using push-fit connectors, while ABS pipes are solvent-welded.

Check the manufacturer’s instructions with regard to expansion, which occurs in 100mm (4in) diameter soil pipe and may occur in plastic waste pipe carrying hot water over a distance. An expansion coupling, with a push-fit seal at one endto allow movement, may be necessary.

FITTING A PUSH-FIT JOINT

Cut the pipe to lenght using a junior hacksaw

1. Plastic pipe cutters

2. Using a file, chamfer down the outer edge of the pipe

3. Remove any internal burrs using a craft knife

4. then apply a little silicone lubricant

5. Push the pipe into the socket of the fitting, right up to the stop. using a marker pen, mark the pipe, then withdraw the pipe 9mm (3/8in), using the mark you made as a measuring guide

6. This is to allow for expansion caused by hot water.

TOP TIP – To help make a straight cut, wrap some masking tape around the plastic pipe to align with the measured mark.

FITTING A SOLVENT-WELD JOINT

Some pipes are connected using fittings which are welded together with a purpose-made solvent. After fitting the waste run together without the solvent, simply reassemble, applying solvent to the inside of the socket and the outside end of the pipe. As for a push-fit joint, push the cut pipe into the socket to check on the fit, and mark the pipe at the end of the joint with a marker pen. For extra adhesion, use fine sandpaper to key the end of the pipe and the inside of the socket

7. To assist the final positioning when the solvent is applied, mark an alignment line on both socket and pipe. When the solvent has been applied

8. immediately align your marks and push the pipe into the socket with a twist

9. You have to work quickly, as the joint will be cured in about 15 – 20 seconds. It will be ready for use with cold water in about one hour and with hot water in approximately four hours.

TOP TIP – If you follow the instructions, you should have a leak-proof bath waste run. However, if a joint is leaking slightly a repair can be effected by simply applying a touch more solvent to the mouth of the socket to seal the joint by capillary action.

PEX PIPEWORK

We believe the future of plumbing is going to be based on PEX pipes. This plastic pipe is ideal for hot and cold water supplies as well as central-heating systems, particularly under floor heating systems. The PEX system is simple to use and install.

Already popular and successful across the USA and Europe, it is beginning to take off here as well, because it is so reliable yet easy to work with. Without any rubber seals or moving parts, it becomes a uniquely innovative design.

The technique for jointing – by means of purpose-designed plastic socket-type fittings – is straightforward and safe, and without the fire risk associated with using a gas torch for soldering. A series of purpose-made adapters make the PEX system compatible with any existing conventionally piped system.

Domestic Water Systems

There are basically two types of domestic water systems – indirect water systems and direct water systems. Indirect is a mains-fed, stored-water system that supplies the drinking water then runs into a water tank in the loft which feeds all other water outlets.

Direct is also a mains-fed system but it feeds all the taps with mains water pressure and provides drinking water from any cold-water tap in the house. This is a great system, especially is you’re contemplating a lost extension, as it does away with water storage tanks. It’s also very handy if you happen to get thirsty in the night – you don’t have to go all the way to the kitchen tap for a drink, just pop into the bathroom. The other advantages are that it’s cheaper to install than the indirect system and you do not have to worry about the possibility of a water tank in the loft freezing and the flooding the house. A direct system requires a pressurized, unvented cylinder to store the hot water. However, for this system to work successfully you need good (strong) mains water pressure.

Indirect Water System

The most common household system is the indirect stored-water system. This works from a mains supply from the company stopcock outside, which enters the house underground and usually surfaces near the kitchen sink. It supplies fresh drinking water under mains pressure, then travels via rising main pipework to a large water tank in the loft space. This tank basically supplies all your water requirements other than fresh drinking water: usually a basins, baths, toilets and showers. The feed for the hot water comes via the storage tank to the boiler or heating cylinder. The water level within the tank is controlled by a floating ball valve which automatically shuts off the water supply at the pre-set level. An overflow pipe fitted to the tank prevents flooding as a result of ball valve failure. Water pouring into the garden from the overflow pipe will quickly alert you to a ball valve problem. This is easily solved, usually by replacing a simple washer on the valve in the storage tank.

Direct Water Systems

Here, the water supply comes in from the outside stopcock via the mains pipe, which runs beneath the house and surfaces near the kitchen sink. The kitchen is the first port of call because the strongest demand for water is here, and the kitchen sinks tap is traditionally where fresh drinking water is supplied. The mains pipe then rises to feed the boiler for the hot-water supply and all the cold-water taps in the bathroom. The toilet is also fed by, mains pressure. The boiler feeds the unvented cylinder, and the hot water (under pressure) feeds all the hot water taps in the house. Any secondary bathrooms will be supplied in the same way.

Bathroom Tip: If you’re planning to fit a boiler and cylinder, check that the sizes you are fitting are adequate for meeting the hot water requirements of your household, including any future expansion in demand, such as loft of kitchen extensions, or maybe an en-suite bathroom.

Drainage and waste systems

Three types of plastic can be used for external drainage and waste pipework. Acrylonitrile butadiene systems (ABS) is a very tough plastic that can be used for both hot and cold waste. It can be connected using either solvent or compression joints. Polypropylene (PP) is a softer, more flexible plastic. It is impossible to glue PP, so the connections are always made using push fit joints. The most commonly used material for external waste pipes is unplasticized polyvinyl chloride (UPVC). This type of plastic is damage resistant to most kinds of household products like bleach and washing powder. Although plastic pipes have been around for many years, until recently the most successful type has been waste pipe made from hard plastics. Plastic supply pipe (cold water) has now been introduced for use underground. Coloured blue, this medium-density polythene (MDPE) pipe is pressure- and corrosion-resistant, thank goodness, so you can fit it and then forget about it. Old mains pipes were quite often made of galvanized steel or lead, which eventually deteriorated. If you have a leaking old-style mains pipe on your property, make sure that you replace it with medium-density polythene. It is far more efficient than the old metal pipes and doesn’t rot.

Waters Systems

Once water enters the property, where does it all go every time you pull the plug on the washing-up, empty the bath or flush the toilet? Underneath every sink or bath there is a U-bend trap, which always retains a certain amount of water, preventing unpleasant sewer smells drifting back up the pipe – the water acts as an impenetrable barrier for such smells. The same principle is used for the toilet –each time it is flushed, everything is forced round the bend in the bottom of the toilet, leaving enough clean water to act as a barrier that prevents smells.

Single Stack

There are basically two types of drainage systems – a single stack or pipe, or the more common two-pipe system. In the former, all the soiled water and toilet waste enters a 100mm (4in) diameter soil stack pipe before running into the underground sewage pipe system via a manhole inspection chamber. This chamber allows for rodding to dislodge any blockages. The stack goes up to eaves level . (guttering) to allow venting of the pipe. This single stack has to be well planned to prevent siphoning of any traps elsewhere in the system, which would allow smells or ever sewer rats into the drainage of your house.

Two pipe System

More common is the two-pipe drainage system, which is generally pre-1960s. This consists of a 100mm (4in) diameter pipe that takes the toilet waste directly via the manhole inspection chamber into the sewer. The pipe also extends to roof level to vent sewer gases and to prevent siphoning the water from the toilet trap. Bath and basin waste are often discharged into a smaller vertica pipe via an open hopper leading to a gully, into which the kitchen sink discharges independently. The gully branch enters the manhole inspection chamber, adjacent to the toilet waste branch, before heading off to join the main sewer. Again, the purpose of the inspection chamber is to allow access for rodding to clear any blockages.

Drainage Responsibility

Responsibility for maintaining drains up to the main sewer is usually the owner’s. A block of terraced or semi-detached properties is often more complicated. If the properties were built pre-1937, the local authority is responsible for the cleansing, but if repairs are required, local authorities are empowered to reclaim the costs from the householder. Contact your local authority’s technical services department to find out who is responsible for your drainage system.

Decades ago, installing a drainage system was a complex and skilled job that involved working with cement joints, salt-glazed clay pipes and fittings, and brick manhole inspection chambers. Today, most local authorities accept modern plastic pipes and inspection chambers, putting drainage well within the capabilities of the bathroom DIY enthusiast. Always check with your local authority before starting drain work, and have the work inspected and approved before reinstating the ground.
Fitting and positioning pipes

Any pipe that discharges into a gully should extend down into the gully below the grille by about 50mm (2in). The reasons for this are twofold. If fallen leaves or rubbish cover the gully grille, water that is discharged from the house will be prevented from entering the underground drainage system. Also, when washing machines or baths discharge, there is a sudden exodus of water, and if that discharged water is not completely contained within the gully, serious problems may occur. Where water softens ground around and under the foundations of a building, for instance, undermining may result, which can cause major cracking. So make sure that all waste pipes extend into the gully, and that there is a suitable mortar seal between the gully and surrounding surface.

Turning off the water

This may sound like stating the obvious, but turn off the water before you attempt to do any work in the bathroom. Locate the relevant valves and turn them off — there is normally a main stopcock under or near the kitchen sink 1. On older, unimproved properties, this may be the only valve for the whole plumbing system; if so, you will have to turn this off and drain down the system by opening all the taps and flushing the toilet until the storage tank is empty.

Bathroom Tip: To temporarily restrict the tank in the loft from refilling, lay a wooden batten across the top of the tank, and tie the ball valve float to it. With the valve closed, open all the taps to empty the tank. Remember, this is temporary, until you fit a gate valve.

Gate Valves

You can avoid the need to empty the storage tank each time you work on the water system, and also keep the cold mains on, if you fit gate valves to both the cold feed pipes leaving the tank 2. This straightforward job will enable you to leave the cold supply to your kitchen for fresh drinking water and cooking, even while you isolate the bathroom for carrying out repairs and alterations. And you won’t need to wait for the empty storage tank to refill afterwards.