The cistern has not been flushing well lately - just no pressure. I could see the inlet valve was working properly and the problem must have been the siphon. I have managed to remove the siphon and discovered the plastic cover underneath it which keeps the water in has lots of punctures in it caused by bits of rubble in the cistern.
No problem I thought just get a new siphon, the problem is its bank holiday weekend and all the merchants are closed. So now got no water, no toilet and bits of cistern all over the bathroom floor.
Found some plastic out of some packaging and cut it to size to replace the punctured stuff. Now glueing it to bottom and I will report back later if it works.
The problem is the attachment to the siphon and the toilet has a million different attachments due to the cistern being from the 1980's and the toilet being the original 1906 one.
I can see lots of leaks happening later :(
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It's just a normal Saturday though, so all the DIY sheds are open. I'm sure you could find the right bits in one of them; it might cost more, but surely preferable to no toilet?
Peter
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Don't sell yourself short Sheikha. Sounds as if you are approaching the thing in a methodical, sensible way. It will only be a disaster if you have to replace the whole cistern.
Meanwhile, a bucket of water handily placed will serve as a labour-intensive flushing system. In Australia, where they feel there is an endemic water shortage, my daughter's bog cistern was turned off. One was supposed to take a bucket in the shower and fill it with used water, which one then used to flush the bog. It seemed a bit annoying at first but one soon got used to it.
Coraggio, Rattolo!
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B&Q only do the full push button replacement kits, Wickes seem to sell even less.
I need the exact replacement siphon otherwise its a major job.
I am hoping the bodge job will work and I can then order the part of ebay, they are only £6.
In the meantime I have jobs while I am waiting for glue to dry etc, looks like I will be getting very familier with the local Wetherspoons toilets!
If the worse comes to the worse I will shut off the inlet valve some how and flush it manually. Sadly there is no isolators on any of the plumbing circuits apart from the central heating system. Our house was plumbed by a mate who was 16 at the time so building regulations were not endeared to but worse still we had no money so the entire thing was done on the cheap hence the second hand cistern.
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B&Q are open today. They won't be open tomorrow. Not sure about Monday but maybe not then either...
So fix it properly and be done with it ;-) Otherwise you might find you have no working toilet for a few days.
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As I said above B&Q don't sell them :( They only sell the full conversion kits and our toilet is not even compatible as its over 100 years old.
The bodge will hopefully work for a few days until the merchants are open again, if not then manual flushing is better than nothing.
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I assume the cistern has a pipe down to the pan?? Even if done in the 80s the outlet from the syphon is likely to be the same size/thread as a new replacement.
Our local Wickes stock these... as should yours...
www.wickes.co.uk/wc-cistern-syphon-with-dual-flush/invt/220869/?awc=1563_1303561124_8ee898ec66d2d5e89baa490068233b90
Any use?
Last edited by: Fenlander on Sat 23 Apr 11 at 13:19
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Found this one
www.wickes.co.uk/wc-syphon/invt/421647/
I did a search for wickes and it only found two.
That one looks like it will be ideal but the pipe itself needs to be 1.8" otherwise I need to channge the pipe going into the toilet pan which will be a major major job as my uncle spent ages getting a modern pipe to fit many years ago.
He is not a plumber but a DIY expert and very handy, if he found it hard I will.
I will see if this modification I have done works when the glue is try, if not I will go to Wickes.
Thanks
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The outlet on that says 1.5", the one one I have repaired is 1.8" but the toilet pan pipe is 1.5". The dosn't seem to be any adapters on it am I missing something?
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Looks like it opens till eight, so that is the case I do my jobs this afternoon and still have time to go.
I am in two minds now, if the Wickes one is the right fitting then I would rather buy a new one.
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Just been to B&Q on the off chance and they had exactly the same siphon that Fenlander posted it. The pipe is exactly the same size the one I am replacing and it comes with all new washers etc :)
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Well done.... you should be OK with sealing as the flush isn't a great pressure like a mains inlet.
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Just cannot get the inlet pipe of the toilet to connect to the outlet pipe of the new siphon :(. This is what my uncle had problems with.
To make matters worse the new one is slightly shorter. I've seen a flexy hose but its far too long.
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In what way doesn't it fit... photo???
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got my bits for our quant system from screwfix
it turned a cant do that guv its obsolete into a well that was an easy job if i say so myself
got to say the boot lace i used from the handle is still going strong after 2 years too and always in water
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It is now bodged to levels even Frank Spancer wouldn't go low and attempt :(.
Using a flexy pipe but I am having to make my own joints. Just hope the materials I am using bond properly.
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>> having to make my own joints.
I have known many an artisan who liked a couple of reflective joints when confronted with a knotty problem. You should give it a try Ratto (he blared subversively).
:o}
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"I can see lots of leaks happening later :( "
Or not Rats !
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There are times when it's sensible to start messing with the plumbing and times when it's not. Easter Saturday afternoon is definately not.
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yeah, the only stuff that gets fixed without some planning is stuff thats really broke, not nearly broke.
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>>
>> Found some plastic out of some packaging and cut it to size to replace the
>> punctured stuff. Now glueing it to bottom and I will report back later if it
>> works.
>>
I did that a few years back, loo was till flushing fine when I sold the house 4 years later, used a bit of pond liner IIRC.
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Oh heck I've only just seen this, been out all day.
If it's just the flap valve that's gone you don't need to go buying bits or replacing joints - just cut out a new piece of thick polythene (fertiliser sacks are ideal) using the old piece as a template. No need to glue it in - it clips in the middle and is supposed to flap up at the sides - that's how it works. This is a recognised method actually taught in plumbing college. There are almost as many siphon designs as there are siphons - you can't possibly expect DIY sheds (or indeed plumbers' merchants!) to stock every possible variation of flap valve - just make your own.
If you've got leaks from places you didn't have leaks before, then you haven't done everything up tight enough :)
If you're really, really stuffed Rattle, facebook me and I'll come and fix it tomorrow afternoon for the price of the diesel (£20 I reckon). Looks like a nice afternoon for a drive.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi {P} on Sat 23 Apr 11 at 23:13
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Thanks hopefully got it sorted just needs a bit more sealant, if this hack dosn't work I will need to buy a new siphon anyway but discovered my local DIY shop has them much cheaper :(.
I panicked a bit, I should have just shut of the cistern until Monday when I could have gone to one of the super DIY stores and got the bits which would probably fit.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Sat 23 Apr 11 at 23:24
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>> I panicked a bit, I should have just shut of the cistern until Monday ....
Lesson learned then for next panic moment. Would these be the same super DIY stores still open earlier today (like the B&Q off the M60 in Stockport) when you first posted ;-) I was there around 3pm and it was a little busy - people buying decking and such like. :-) Maybe the parts were there when I was, around 2 hours after my reply above?
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 23 Apr 11 at 23:50
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Rattle,
The ideal water level setting for these, when the ball-cock shuts the water off, is to be about an inch below the underside of the blue top -- for the examples shown. In other words, close to but not high enough for the water to be able dribble over and down the loo leaving your fill still running. At the correct level, they flush very easily with little effort because the water has to be lifted only that inch or so to get it to syphon.
If you find yourself having to press (or pull) the flush hard, and sometimes try more than once, check out the water level.
I bought a second one before I sat down and thought about it and only then discovered I could buy a shorter version. Mrs busbee was pleased not to be receiving further instruction on how to quickly flick the wrist!
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The flush works perfectly after a bit of experimenting with the bungs, also looks like I have finally fixed the leak. It seems I had ran out of energy on Saturday because the siphon wasn't quite fastened to the cistern base causing it to leak through the washer.
Teflon tape and plumbers putty and an improvised bit of flexy pipe has done the rest. As dry as a bone now. It is not as neat as a professional job but the toilet now flushes perfectly and the entire job cost £30, I could have done it cheaper with a bit of advanced planning though.
The original problem was the water in the siphon was leaking out due to punctures so it would require about 10 flushes. I had the runs that Saturday morning and I got sick of it, so I got my spanners out without thinking things through!
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Too much information Ratts.
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Hopefully this picture will show the original problem. The toilet is the original 1906 one, the cistern came off a building site circa 1999 to replace the original upright wooden one. The problem is the toilet is set too far back for the cistern so the two pipes wouldn't line up.
So I got a bit of flexy pipe which fitted inside the siphon perfectly and sealed with Teflon tape for that extra bit of sealant.
The tube also fitted into the toilet well, I used lots of plumbers putty to seal the gaps.
i167.photobucket.com/albums/u141/amazingtrade/toilet.jpg
The water drops you can see on the cistern is just condensation as the shower had been used for the picture was taken and there is no extraction in the bathroom (it breaks every single building regulation on the planet!).
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A wooden cistern ? ......riiiiiiiight.....!
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Yep the original one was made out of wood and lined with lead to make it water proof. After 95 odd years it started leaking, so my uncle had a friend who has having a new bathroom fitted so gave us that one.
The siphon was the cheap bit, the pipe was a £12 from B&Q which I know is probably a 150000% markup but it was an emergency.
The rest was on putty and other bits.
The only tools I had for this job was an old 1970's imperial socket which got given to me many years ago, in there was a sort of cheap plumbers spanner.
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>>The siphon was the cheap bit, the pipe was a £12 from B&Q which I know is probably a 150000% markup but it was an emergency.
>>The rest was on putty and other bits.
>>
Glad you did not have to repair the air tube on a close coupled double trap siphonic suite like mine. The right sized air tube ( aspirator) is no longer made so it was work out a repair or a whole new suite. They dont make em like that any more.
I have since found a replacement airex unit is £44.95 or including the siphon is £59.95 !!!!
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>> have since found a replacement airex unit is £44.95 or including the siphon is £59.95 !!!!
You could have got an entire toilet, including cistern and seat for £50:
www.wickes.co.uk/toilet-to-go/invt/212576/
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Dave
That's where I was coming from. Maybe not buy one quite so cheap. Rattle seems happy with a bodged cistern etc. for an old toilet bowl. The old toilet maybe better than many new ones. But the overall solution he had looks like it will fail.
And he acknowledges anyone buying the house will rip it all out.... so get a working toilet for yourself now.
If they are not currently there.... some isolation valves for the toilet water supply just in case. Although I assume you only have one toilet Rattle? We're down to two now (had four in the old house).
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 25 Apr 11 at 23:06
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No isolation valves for the cistern but its very easy to stop by propping up the ball cock, that will stop any water from getting into it.
Fitting a new toilet/cistern is beyond my skills anyway especially with crappy tools. I managed the sink but that is a much easier job.
I wouldn't even know where to begin in removing a toilet which has been down for over 100 years.
Its a selling point too as its an original feature :).
Yep just the one toilet and that was quite rare to have a proper upstairs bathroom in terrace houses back then.
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>> You could have got an entire toilet, including cistern and seat for £50:
>>
You are right of course BUT the existing pan only just fits. Not sure if a new one will.
The reason is that the soil pipe was installed too low, so even with an Multikwik offset connector it just fits else it was either break out the cast iron soil pipe through the wall or start hacking a hole in the floorboards.
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That is what people forget, and even a new toilet means lots of new pipes. I remember when I replaced the sink I thought it was just a new sink and put the attach the same pipe to the new tap. It didn't work like that and I remember having to remove a a lot more plumbing than I had hoped for. I ended up buying flexyhoses for the taps and having to completely re plumb the waste pipe because nothing would line up.
I remember that £45 sink ended up costing close to £80 by the time I had bought all the new pipes and finishing touches.
And then of course it needed new cushion floor because the old one was cut round the old sink, to make matters worse we then decided it needed decorating. So a new sink ends up being a complete refurb job.
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>> It is not as neat as a professional
>> job but the toilet now flushes perfectly and the entire job cost £30, I could
>> have done it cheaper with a bit of advanced planning though.
>>
30 quid cheaper still if you'd just replaced the flap, I thought that was the only bit that was broke.
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If this were my house, I'd have replaced the 1906 toilet long ago and got a complete working toilet that I was confident would work and not leak. Seeing the picture above makes me wonder when it will leak and cause other problems. Probably when nobody is in to notice - that's what normally happens with leaks.
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People are always in though, the house is never empty, its only at night it could be a problem but it won't just give way, if it does start to leak it should be a subtle drip at first.
We did get the chance of a new toilet, but it was lime green so we decided to keep the original which is a rather fancy design, it is probably worth something, its in very very good condition.
In fact until me and mate re-plumbed everything ten years ago all the plumbing in the house was the original lead pipes and original taps.
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>> In fact until me and mate re-plumbed everything ten years ago all the plumbing in the
>> house was the original lead pipes and original taps.
Would that be the 16 year old plumber? :-)
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Party, my uncle did a lot too. He wasn't even a plumber either but a carpenter but was very handy with his hands. To be fair we've not had a single plumbing issue with the work he did and it was all done for free labour in exchange for a website.
He was probably 19 when he did the plumbing work, but I remember him fitting a window when he was 16, again no issues with that window at all.
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>> I'd have replaced the 1906 toilet long ago and got a complete working toilet
I wouldn't, unless the pottery was broken. Those old Victorian and Edwardian bogs can be very elegant, some of them with patterns or graphics, usually in blue, all over. In London and Dublin in particular, I've even seen those old German-style bogs with a high shelf enabling you, when in hypochondriacal mood, to inspect your output closely before flushing it away.
Ever seen a genuine Thomas Crapper crapper? They don't make them like that any more. You can't even slam the lids of the ones we've got here - they have damped hinges - but elegant they're not. Soulless. One might as well be in a motel.
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Remember the porcelain in my Grandmas victorian outside toilet. It had patterns of intertwined stems of roses, in pink.
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>> Remember the porcelain in my Grandmas victorian outside toilet. It had patterns of intertwined stems of roses, in pink.
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Such detail - did you spend a lot of time in close inspection om your knees ?
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my grandma was a shocking cook.
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That was the original idea but it was all sealed so for the sake of £16 it seemed better to buy a brand new part.
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Rattle do your parents still intend selling the house at some point? If so get the toilet replaced. If I saw that toilet plumbing on a viewing then I'd probably laugh but think what else is totally bodged in the house.... and never come back.
I wonder what a surveyor will make of this if someone were to buy the house. Food for thought.
One house we nearly bought hardly had a kitchen (and was small) and the bathroom needed ripping out and replacing... and lots more needing doing throughout. But the house was priced accordingly (about £50k less than the one we bought but with a kitchen extension it would have cost at least £40-50k to get it how we wanted it).... but the underpinning and a few things raised in the survey made us reconsider.
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The house need so much doing to it that it would have be to sold about 50k below the asking prices of other houses anyway. It needs a new roof, new bathroom, new kitchen, new consumer unit (as the current one is 1980), re plastering, new ceilings etc.
It looks fine because everything is always well decorating but underneath it all everything needs replacing.
On the plus side we have kept on top of all the windows, and one only them will need replacing.
It is a bodge but anybody buying the house will want to rip out the bathroom anyway.
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>> The house need so much doing to it that it would have be to sold
>> about 50k below the asking prices of other houses anyway. It needs a new roof,
>> new bathroom, new kitchen, new consumer unit (as the current one is 1980), re plastering,
>> new ceilings etc.
>>
£15k max
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>>>£15k max
Perhaps but if I was buying I'd still want £50k off for the hassle of doing it!
BTW Rattle there is no other way of saying this but that is a dreadful repair... get yourself a new toilet you can be proud of.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Tue 26 Apr 11 at 08:59
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>> If I saw that toilet plumbing on a viewing then I'd probably
>> laugh but think what else is totally bodged in the house.... and never come back.
>>
>> I wonder what a surveyor will make of this if someone were to buy the
>> house. Food for thought.
It's a triumph of engineering know-how and modern resourcefulness. How dare you!
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Over our multiple house ownership period I've had to resolve rather too many examples of *modern resourcefulness* from previous owners. Electrics are often the most chilling.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Tue 26 Apr 11 at 09:32
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Agree. The worst thing you can hear when looking at at a house is 'my husband did this all himself'.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Tue 26 Apr 11 at 09:38
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>> Agree. The worst thing you can hear when looking at at a house is 'my
>> husband did this all himself'.
Professional builders can be just as bad, if not worse. I had to completely rewire the basement of my last place courtesy of the bodges of two separate bunches of builders who'd been in over the previous decade.
Anyway, lead-lined wooden cisterns cost £800+ VAT when they have them in stock here. www.lassco.co.uk/index.php?id=66&tx_evlasscoimageview_pi1[category]=78&tx_evlasscoimageview_pi1[category_uid]=152
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Rats, I seem to recall sometime back, that I suggested you buy a cheap run down terraced house or flat, and do it up.
Please don't take my advice. It was clearly in error.
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Have you considered applying for Grade II listing or is the house listing enough anyway?
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Ah shaddap the lotta yez...
House buyers very often gut kitchens, bathrooms etc. even when the existing ones are perfectly good. I don't know about housing in Manchester but generally speaking the decorative state of the building, even unto cracked plaster and so on, doesn't make a huge difference to the value which is based on the value of the land and a main structure - roof and walls- that isn't grossly decayed.
Don't listen to them Ratto. The house will still be worth much the same as the others like it, even if they have had new kitchens and a bit of aluminium siding or faux plastic drystone wall stuck on the outside. Anyone who says different will be trying to steal it. Spit in their eye and do your best to be extremely rude (I'm afraid you may need a bit of coaching here. I am available for a modest fee).
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Another great rattle DIY disaster - PeterS
