Dissolving waste pipe

[ailbhe]

The waste pipe in question, yeronner, was - and has been replaced by - a series of metal rings held together by flexible plastic; the metal acts like a hoopskirt, and the flexibility means it can get from the back of the toilet pan to the hole in the floor no matter what the cistern is like.

I've lived in a lot of different places of varying standards, and the plumber has been working in plumbing for years, and neither of us had every seen anything like it before.

We can only guess at what happened. While we were on holiday, perhaps the cleaner put a lot of descaler (acid!) into it, and without the usual flushing away, it damaged the plastic? Perhaps at some stage someone tipped a jug of boiling water down it and melted the pipe? We don't know. But when we have a house with a toilet on every floor, losing one won't be so traumatic.

Comments

[pauamma]

I'm not sure which acids would dissolve plastic. (Do you know which specific plastic it was?) As for boiling water, it would take a lot - and very high-pressure water at that, I don't think water near 212F at 1 atm. would cut it - to soften and melt or deform plastic, let alone to make it all liquid and drain it away.