Little things that irritate you

[kenthammer]

My local Asda you would fill up jump in vehicle and drive to the exit where you paid at the cabin through your open window and drive off,the amount of people who filled up then ambled over to pay then ambled back to the car looking for there keys was bloody annoying
Changed them all now to autopumps

[jastons]

A blocked drain. I live in a ground floor flat and water is coming back up into the bath.

I've tried several brands of kitchen / bathroom drain unblocker, boiling water, plunger and even a drain snake. Nothing has made any difference.

Before I call in a plumber, is there anything else I could try? Tempted to try caustic soda but not sure if it will damage the pipe work?

[kenthammer]

Hosepipe on jet but watch out for splashback

['Appy 'Ammer]

I use my local Asda and just pick it up when I’m food shopping. Change chemists! It can be easily done online.

Download the Pharmacy2U app. Sign up and you will never need to go to a Pharmacy ever again. Free delivery too.

Brilliant service

[WHU Independent]

Download the Pharmacy2U app. Sign up and you will never need to go to a Pharmacy ever again. Free delivery too.

Brilliant service

This! I use this service and it is top notch. The stuff comes the day after your DR Ok's the perscription. No queueing at the chemist, no travelling to the chemist - simply brilliant!

[WHU Independent]

A blocked drain. I live in a ground floor flat and water is coming back up into the bath.

I've tried several brands of kitchen / bathroom drain unblocker, boiling water, plunger and even a drain snake. Nothing has made any difference.

Before I call in a plumber, is there anything else I could try? Tempted to try caustic soda but not sure if it will damage the pipe work?

I did what you did but then went for the Caustic soda option. The whole sink erupted like a volcano, the caustic soda went everywhere. I've still got the burn marks to prove it. And it didn't work.

Call a plumber mate!

[uptonspark]

A blocked drain. I live in a ground floor flat and water is coming back up into the bath.

I've tried several brands of kitchen / bathroom drain unblocker, boiling water, plunger and even a drain snake. Nothing has made any difference.

Before I call in a plumber, is there anything else I could try? Tempted to try caustic soda but not sure if it will damage the pipe work?

It could be nothing to do with your waste pipes mate, as it could well be blocked in the street and backing up to you. Can you locate the manhole cover that's yours outside. May be worth lifting it up and having a look, cos if that's blocked then no amount of gear down your drain will help.

[mushy]

A blocked drain. I live in a ground floor flat and water is coming back up into the bath.

I've tried several brands of kitchen / bathroom drain unblocker, boiling water, plunger and even a drain snake. Nothing has made any difference.

Before I call in a plumber, is there anything else I could try? Tempted to try caustic soda but not sure if it will damage the pipe work?

First of all, find out where the drain is blocked.
Bathwater coming back up is an indicator of the blockage elsewhere rather than the waste from the bath, otherwise why would the water come back up? Drainage from elsewhere must be pushing it back up.
Have you got man cover outside anywhere?
That's the first place I would look.
Then buy drain rods and rod it all out.
Good luck

[Hampshire Hammer]

Smartshop, as I breeze past all the queues for the conveyor belts then the massive queue for self scan tills, out the door.

Only to be told that you've been selected for your shopping to be checked, by the extra slow halfwit that the store manager has put on self scan duty today.

[LincolnshireHammer]

Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before in this thread

But people turning right at roundabouts constantly using the left lane to ride it all the way around. ****ing dangerous. Seems to be the case more so in London…Bow roundabout nearly every time I go through the same ducking thing!!

[Hummer_I_mean_Hammer]

A blocked drain. I live in a ground floor flat and water is coming back up into the bath.

I've tried several brands of kitchen / bathroom drain unblocker, boiling water, plunger and even a drain snake. Nothing has made any difference.

Before I call in a plumber, is there anything else I could try? Tempted to try caustic soda but not sure if it will damage the pipe work?

had someone come out sometime back to rod out our drains, mentioend caustic soda, he said not to use it. As I understood it, it can solidify itself, resulting in further complications.

As others have said, best thing to do find the blockage and if possible rod it. Problem might be that you have everyone elses foul water stacking up behind the blockage, so if you're gonna do it, then be prepared.

[RichieRiv]

For blockages on waste, forget caustic soda. You need One Shot, which you can get from B&Q etc. But be ****ing careful because it is nasty stuff.

But as has been said, if it's coming up through the bath, then that would indicate a larger backup. If that's the case then I wouldn't bother with a plumber, get onto whomever you pay for your wastewater. The law changed several years ago meaning that you are only responsible up to the point where your waste joins the communal waste. They are responsible from there, even if it's on private land. If it is communal waste, then they will jet wash it, which is far more effective than rods.

[Hummer_I_mean_Hammer]

.....which is far more effective than rods.

Also safer - possibility that the damned rods break. Then you're literally up sh8t creek.

[RichieRiv]

Also safer - possibility that the damned rods break. Then you're literally up sh8t creek.

Keep turning clockwise, keep turning clockwise, keep turning clockwise. Oh f***.

[pablo jaye]

DIY.

I’m also in the ‘if I haven’t got the right tools, I’m probably gonna bodge this’ camp, so it’s only the simple stuff for me.

Last summer, I tasked myself with making a garden table out of a pallet using tools that I had … a saw and hammer. I did it and with a lick of paint, it looks OK. So much so, that I then made 3 smaller tables for family at Xmas in our ‘make do and mend’ present them. They went down well.

It has given me a bit more confidence, which I think is the key with DIY.

[Misko]

For blockages on waste, forget caustic soda. You need One Shot, which you can get from B&Q etc. But be ****ing careful because it is nasty stuff.

But as has been said, if it's coming up through the bath, then that would indicate a larger backup. If that's the case then I wouldn't bother with a plumber, get onto whomever you pay for your wastewater. The law changed several years ago meaning that you are only responsible up to the point where your waste joins the communal waste. They are responsible from there, even if it's on private land. If it is communal waste, then they will jet wash it, which is far more effective than rods.

Something similar happened to us a couple of years ago. We called a company specialised in this kind of sanitation issues. They quickly spotted that the building drain was blocked by wipes and menstrual pads, and got rid of it by jet washing it indeed. Sorted in a quarter of an hour. And definitely, I wouldn't try to do it myself, too dangerous.

[norse]

Diminutive work colleague being garrulous all day every day

[sendô]

Seconded on RR's point re getting the waterboard to sort the drains outside of your property, although you need to be clear about the point where it stops being your responsibility and becomes theirs. Their bit is where your pipe joins a pipe used by other neighbours - but this might not apply if you have a shared alleyway for instance.

An issue I had at my previous property where the neighbour was putting wads and wads of wet wipes down the toilet, and we only realised when the upstair toilet was backing up. When I lifted our shared drain up, I was confronted with what was by that point a drain filled to the absolute brim with a near solid mixture of wet wipes, toilet paper and ****, like some sort of huge papier mache **** cube. When I knocked on the neighbour's door to ask her to refrain from putting wet wipes down the toilet any more I got a mouthful of abuse. The entire thing was a ****ing nightmare to shift, needed a lot of rodding, hosing down and buckets of water chucked in.

[Jonah]

Similar Sendo, my old house (1905 small semi) would block once or twice a year and overflow out of the drain onto our Patio (really nice in the summer) the run from the waste was just us and the next door neighbour. All sorts of stuff was thrown down there from them - sanitary pads, wet wipes and folded up nappies! Scummy.

Water company had us on file as being troublesome because there had been a drop of pipe level on her side meaning the run off angle wasn't great when they tested after one particular bad blockage so it was never chargeable - this was all before the law change that RR mentions. Seeing the job they do, I hope they are paid well.

[Hummer_I_mean_Hammer]

^^^ worst I have seen was when I used to run the estates over in Thailand, they had septic tanks as there isn't (to my knowledge) a drainage system like over here.

Stupid people stuck nappies, wipes and one time we even discovered a tee-shirt (FFS!!) down the khazi and people wondered why it'd get blocked.

Was a case of getting the little thai lad to drop down into the tank once we'd had it emptied it, and jet wash things down. You seriously couldn't pay me enough money for doing that job, never mind in temps over 30'C..