Awww hell...

We have another leak somewhere.... this means I will have to go under the house and see if I can see what's going on. This leak is between the bathroom and toilet and evidence is that the chipboard floor is very very dark.... it gets very low under that bit, it would wouldn't it! The house is about one metre from the ground at the entrance door and goes down to about 8 cms at the other end and the bit where it's leaking is about half way. Oh joy joy joy!!!! I may scrape a bit of dirt out so I'm not so close to the floor.... Euwwww..... The cats have been leaving mummified remains of whatever they'd murdered under there and of course, when it's raining, why go dig a hole in the rain when under the house is so DRY!! Blast and damnit!!! I will be shortly, donning my PVC pants and a hat and doing my shirt collar up to the last button, grabbing a stock stick to clear the cobwebs as I go and will have to make a hole in the silver paper stuff so I can see what's going on... I think I may need some wire cutters as well cos there is chicken wire holding the shiny paper in place....

How lovely!

This place was plumbed with black pipe and crimped joints so any bit that needs fixing is beyond me.... I may have to resort to replacing the crimp joint with some sort of hose clip and a joiner. The tool to crimp the joints is hideously expensive. I'd love to find the person responsible for designing this plumbing and give them a good swift boot up the bum.

Dad built our family home back in around 1950 and we NEVER had a leak in the plumbing. Every place I have lived in previous to this one was oodles older and never had a leak..... Shoddy plumbing products!!!!

Yakut

Good luck...I can't do it. Even once when I thought Max might be lost under the house I couldn't do it. I got all dressed up, beanie, overalls, gloves got most of my body in then had to back out rapidly [][] Luckily, Geoff is much braver (and less claustrophobic) than me

I really admire people who can do it - I've got the heebie jeebies just thinking about it...

I hope the leak is easily fixed

Cheers
Kate

Yakut that sounds like the pits, you can buy non crimp jointers for that stuff from plumbing supply also some hardware shops, we had them at Mico plumbing back in the day, if its the pipe you need to find out why it started leaking all the best I'm glad it's not me

i'm with Kate on this one.. you are way braver than me..mind you i would have ot be about 7" thick to fit under my house..not only do i have dodgy plumbing and drainage like you.. but the whole house is waaaay to close to the ground..when you have finished kicking your plumbers bum, you can kick to twit that relocated the house so low..!
and there are things that creep under there as well.. iiiikkk..skin crawling just thinking about hairy man eating spiders falling on me..

Right on Yakut. When my grandfather built my brother's house for himself in the 1950's he put the majority of the plumbing on the outside of the wall where we could see it if there was ever a problem. It was all galvanised. In the early '80s I stripped all the cold supply apart and ran a bottle brush through it because it was rusted up to such an extent that a 3/4 inch pipe was flowing about 1/4 inch maximum. Every joint unscrewed easily because they were done up with plumbers graphite grease. When reassembled that pipework lasted well into the '90s. Sure, it looked ugly on the outside of the wall, but it was easy to work on.

So, one mummified bird flicked to the right and one, what looked like the back end of a rat, just the bum and tail, flicked to the right. Stock stick got all the webs well before I did. Tiny drip in a join in the hot water pipe under the kitchen but Oooh ohh dear.... the bathroom........ the cabinet has been cleaned out and a hole made in the wall. The bloody pipe has two elbow joins in it, one under the basin, visible and easily got at, dry as a bone, the other one, behind the wall is leaking.. well it WOULD be wouldn't it! Buggar all room to work in the cabinet but with a lot of sweating and grunting I have cut a square hole around one of the pipes. It is wet, not gushing, not even really dribbling but it is wet enough to know there is a leak in the lower crimp.

Will have to cut a hole around the other tap to make sure that's not leaking as well. The pile under the house is green with slime and the floor is soaked so it's been happening for a looong long while.... we suspected the shower at first but after a new shower head and a new mixer we figured we'd sorted that out..... which we had.

Kim asked me "Can we fix it?" I said "Maybe... possibly..." She said, ok, I'll ask that one again.... Can we fix it?" I took the hint and said "Yes". Well we'll just have to won't we! I think I have some plumbers cement somewhere, it worked on the laundry tub......... if the worst comes to the worst, it might work but there are other avenues to try first. Bloody plumbing!!!!!!

I had to G.I Josephine it for the last few yards, literally but I had my PVC pats on, a woolen hat with ears and my sleeveless oilskin vest done up to the neck and one leather glove.. couldn't find the other one and Kims gloves had got wet and were like tar paper. I think being on medication helps overcome the panic [] .... panic? panic" what panic?
"oh look, what's that... euw, the bum of a rat by the looks, cheers girls" Flick! (with the end of the stock stick)

Yakut

You are brave I need more room than that to even think about going under that is one of the reasons we put ours up higher when we relocated here the guys doing it thought we were mad but when shower floor rotted $^%^%$#$$^& plumber forgot to put big nut thingy on waste pipe I was glad of the room

Ok, the hole has been made a bit bigger to work through, bloody cramped working in the cupboard, I have to squeeze my shoulders through the door and then try and fix it. There is buggar all room so we're looking at some sort of plumbers putty. I've got plumbers cement stuff but once that's dried it's like concrete, literally, so if it doesn't work, we're really in the pooh... heading off into Pukekohe to see what the plumbers merchants say. As usual, it's bloody after 4pm so most of them are likely to be closed. May have to try tomorrow.

It's a constant flow but a small one, big enough to make a right royal pigs ear of the floor though.... must have been leaking for months if not longer.

The pile under the house that is wet is wet on the side that you don't see from the entrance door.... well it wasn't when I've been under there before. I never went under that far, it was usually to swear at some leak in the pipes under the kitchen or hot water cylinder. Bah!

Who would have thought a little dribble could be such a major pain in the sphincter!

Yakut

I might add..... why two elbow joints in one pipe? Why? Why? Why? The 'vanity unit' isn't anything flash, quite high compared to most and the taps are set on the basin but why two elbow joints? One would have done and I'd say the one that ISN'T leaking would have been enough!!!! Thurrrrrrrrp to the plumbing genius who invented crimp joints and Thurrrrrrrp to the person that thought they'd use them on this house....

They all need a swift boot in the slacks!.... and to pay for the physio when I've finished cricking my shoulders and neck trying to fix their little stroke of genius!

Yakut

oh man.. what a drama. .. i have had my share of plumbing issues and i know what a little drip can do!! .. i actually went thru the floor in in the laundry because it had rotted with an unknown leak from years before we bought.. funny as a fight.. as i am standing with soggy flooring around my knees.. oh well at least that one easy.. rip up the floor and fix leak.. replace floor..the one with the shower had the outside waether boards off... and god forbid the pump under the kitchen goes!! cant reach it at all.. i think i will just walk away and live somewhere else..

On Tm there is some tape they say better than gaffa tape which I have used and that was good TM 324535869 maybe you can get some local, gaffa tape is what they use to hold racing cars together after a bending type thing

Also known as 200mph tape because it holds race cars together at speeds in excess of 200 mph.

Yakut we had a problem in our sons house, our chip board was taking weeks to dry out, so a cut away the foil under the bathroom floor and the chip board dried in around 3 days. We will replace the foil under the bathroom/toilet with that polystyrene so it can be removed easily if needed in the future.

gaff tape.. not only holds cars together.. but.. as a friend once said.. it is like the force, has a dark side, a light side and holds the universe together.. i use it for everything.. and now you can get water proof gaff!..
idea for holes in boots,holes in pipes ( of which i have 2 thanks to over zealous spade work ).. awesome for holding poultice on horsey feet.. etc etc ..

They use loads of it in the film industry thats were I first found out about it so always have some around but that suff claims to be better than most