Friday 27 October 2017

Shower swamp - The Creature from the Black Lagoon

The drainage of the shower has been getting steadily worse, so that now the shower tray turns into a foot bath when used. The Major has been applying one of her many potions to it, but the results have been only a temporary alleviation of the symptoms.

Eventually it annoyed me enough to bring out the sink plunger and give it a good thrashing.

Action stations!

Unfortunately rather than clearing a partial blockage in the shower tray I enhanced it into a complete blockage and blocked both drains of the basin and bath as well. Result 😒.

On the plus side this meant that whatever the blockage was I had moved it into the common drain for the bathroom which was outside and should have been easy to get to. An inspection confirmed that, although access was a little restricted, I must have dislodged the blockage into the downpipe as the hopper was full.

Camouflaged waste water drainage system

First order of business was to assemble the gear for hacking through the undergrowth.

Jungle-busting gear

Then cut along the garden path,

Before                                      After 

along the path in front of the kitchen window,

Before                                    After 

and finally into the corner.

Before                                        After    

A green wheelie bin full of greenery later proper access to the hopper and downpipe was afforded; time taken - an hour and a half.

A bit of rodding with a garden cane and whatever was causing the issue disappeared into the drains and the problem was solved; time taken - 5 minutes.

Flooded hopper

Post-rodding

While I was at it I cleaned out the drain,

Grotty                                                    Clean

and with that the drain problem was solved and I went looking for someone to help with the clear up of the bathroom.

As to what caused the blockage in the first place, who knows?

No comments:

Post a Comment