Fascinating subject:(
I think mine is a Winser.
www.google.com/search?q=winser+interceptor+trap
When we first came to live here the vendors bequeathed us what I later came to know as a fatberg, and in clearing it I discovered this contraption. I figured out it was a u-bend (which you can't get a rod through although you can jet it, stand well back...) with a pipe above it for rodding beyond.
Somebody explained to me that it is supposed to keep smells and rodents from coming up your drains and soil vents, because the top hole is supposed to have a bung in it. It's quite usual for the bung to be missing, which mine is.
I've had to unblock the trap several times. Our drains haven't much fall and every blockage we have had starts at this trap.
When we built the new house we replaced all the drains up to the chamber this trap is at the exit of, and I had to unblock it again on Sunday, the giveaway being that the sink traps were all gurgling when a WC was flushed.
I think it probably blocked before we moved in, the first few yards of the blockage seemed to be suffused with white paint residue...the painter having left us 3 weeks ago.
I'm hoping that was a one-off, but I'm wondering if it will now be a chronic problem. All the WC's, taps and showers claim to be "water saving" so the flows will probably be lower, and parts of the new drains have the minimum fall or close to it.
Has anybody else had problems with one of these interceptors or replaced one? If I'm going to be doing this job monthly it will have to be sorted, no doubt at vast expense.
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Plumber? Oh dear, the white paint is caulk/ silicon sealant. DrainPain ahead alert
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>> Plumber? Oh dear, the white paint is caulk/ silicon sealant. DrainPain ahead alert
I rarely saw them using plumber's paste or silicone sealant. There was yards of the white stuff, and I know the painter was washing his buckets, rollers and brushes out into the drains - I never saw him doing it but traces were evident in basins etc.
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If it is a standard interceptor trap there isn't much to go wrong. On your link the first couple of images are not typical. It will normally be a chamber (manhole) with a channel at the bottom. In the downstram wall of the manhole there will be a trap with a rodding eye above. The rodding eye should have a plug in it. In most domestic properties the interceptor is the last chamber before the swage goes into the authority sewer.
The trap is the place where most blockages occur, or it might be in the length of drain running out to the sewer..
Where is the blockage? Have you got some decent rods? Do you know what you are doing? Rod the drain with some good rods with one of these www.wardsflex.co.uk/rubber-disc-for-plunger-100mm-4-pack-of-5/ FIRMLY fixed to the end.
Let us know how you get on.
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Thanks Duncan, yes mine is as you describe.
I have about 20m of rods, the rubber disc, the dragger and the corkscrew. I'm fairly handy with the rods, keep twisting them clockwise. Losing them down the drain would turn a drama into a crisis. It's clear now, and the trap seemed to be the cause of the backup. I know there were some tree roots beyond, but Thames Water used the cutting jet on those about 5 years ago and I've removed the tree now. Maybe there is a bit of regrowth that has slowed things down.
Time will tell, I'm just hoping this won't be a monthly job ad wondering what to do if it is. One option is to dig a big hole and put a straight pipe in but I won't be doing that and don't think there's be much change from £3,000. The pipe beyond the chamber crosses a ditch and it's cased in concrete.
If there is a root problem I can just about argue it's not on my land. The chamber is about 2m metres on my side of the gate and that's about how far down the roots will be. I've had the rods through but it was a bit of a push. I'll try the corkscrew next time.
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Have you tried clearing the blockage with chemicals? If you can get most of the liquid from the chamber to ensure that the water is not effectively diluting the chemical agent? I have had some remarkable results using very concentrated H2SO4 (forgot the trade name for now).
I had roots that created a sump that was prone to blockage in a 100mm drain that was not roddable.
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One of the few common industrial chemicals that I am obsessively cautious of. It's strongly hygroscopic and exothermic so if you get it on your skin the first thing you feel is the heat sensation. By that time the damage has already been done.
2 years in the slammer for possession without a license.
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www.gov.uk/government/news/government-introduces-tough-new-measure-to-prevent-acid-attacks
I am supposed to dispose of it, " following manufacturers instructions". Pour it down a drain? It was bought legally originally.
Last edited by: sherlock47 on Wed 18 May 22 at 21:56
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I think it's also covered by laws supposed to make it more difficult to homebrew explosives* so you could probably be charged under terrorism legislation as well.
* Easiest (but highly unstable until absorbed into kieselguhr) is probably Nitroglycerine.
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>> Good grief what's in it?
Our Willie passed away today,
His face we’ll see no more;
What Willie thought was H2O
Proved H2SO4.
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Caustic Soda solution would normally be my first port of call rather than rods
My son had issues with his new build house - it was builder's rubbish that had accumulated at a bend. Waterboard came (FOC when needed in Scotland as £3.00 added to all bills for blockages outside of the house footprint) - saw the rubbish on their camera and told the son to get the builder involved.
Contractor pickup - 3 men arrive, one puts on "space suit" jumps into the manhole which was brimming with "brown stuff" - five minutes later he was hosed down by his mate and 5 mins later departed.
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>>Caustic Soda solution would normally be my first port of call rather than rods
Good for grease isn't it? This was paper for the most part, it's odds on that somebody has been putting workshop or kitchen towel, or builder's wet wipes, down. I rodded (plunged, more or less) the trap and the pipe beyond first, where the back up started but I still had to rod further up to get it moving.
I don't think the caustic would have penetrated a back up 10-12 metres long, but I'll get some in and run it through next time. It was clean when I'd finished, and I lifted the cover on the interceptor this morning (48 hours on) and it's still running through so it might be OK if not abused. It's on the calendar for the middle of next month.
In England the water board will clear any shared drain, or anything outside the householder's boundary. Thames Water were doing some survey work on the main line with a big recycler and some camera kit when I got them to jet it 5 years ago. I gave the ganger a dozen eggs.
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I think you've posted about drains blocking before, is there some particular reason your property is prone to them or just a bit of bad luck.
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It started with the fatberg we inherited. We've had the odd back up over over 20 years we've been here since then, always from the interceptor (or just beyond), and that I now put down to tree roots. When TW cleared the tree roots that seemed to solve it. So it's possible they've grown back somewhat.
My speculation is that the interceptor itself, combined with low velocity and low flow, is making it blockage-prone. If that is the case I'm fairly sure that it could be solved by either by renewing the pipe beyond the interceptor and or replacing the interceptor with straight pipe, but I can do without the expense.
I don't mind doing a quarterly inspection, but if it's going to bung up every week I'll have to do something.
I'm not bothered about the missing bung, it's not been there for decades, but it doesn't help as a bypass because it doesn't come into play until the level is such that the pipe upstream is dammed.
The grandchildren (5 & 7, girls) were here on Sunday, so I left the covers off and we had a drain tutorial. They were fascinated and very amused. The elder one put some cover screws back for me.
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The fatberg should be got rid of, break it up, flush it down the drain and into the sewer - whatever.
Chemicals rely on the drain (a) being slow moving and (b) the point at which the chemical is put in, not being too far from the obstruction, so that the chemicals not being too diluted. If you do use chemicals be very, very, wary about getting into the manhole afterwards, unless the manhole is no more than, say, three feet deep. Certain acids when they come into contact with lime scale can form something similar to phosgene gas (v. nasty). Ask me how I know.
If you leave the rodding eye plug out for a period of time, when the trap blocks and the effluent flows through the cleaning eye, that upstream length of drain will have effluent standing in it, which will allow solids to settle out, thereby leading to your next blockage.
What do your local water authority say? Is it a shared drain?
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Got rid of the fatberg 20 years ago, before they were called fatbergs. That was when I really got into drains...
I've never had a bung for the rodding hole. TBH I don't fancy going fishing for the bung when I want to rod it. It does keep the level down in the chamber, but as you say it doesn't stop the back up because it's too high.
It's not a shared drain.
If it comes down to the tree roots again, I'll try and get Thames Water to do it. It's debatable where the boundary is so I'll construe it to be my gate which is about where they will be.
Last edited by: Manatee on Tue 17 May 22 at 15:07
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We occasionally get a blockage and call out Wessex Water. Although the blockage is our responsibility, I at least know (a) they will do a proper job, and (b) what the charge will be.
Chatting to the operative last time he suspected the cause may have been a slight subsidence of one pipe (~25mm confirmed by camera) which does not fully drain exacerbated by low flow - we spend a large part of the winter in Spain so any deposits solidify and build up.
His suggestion - fill wheelbarrow with as much water as it will hold. Deposit in upstream drain cover. The pressure created by the pressurised flow of a large volume of water should flush the pipes in a way that a running tap has no chance.
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>> fill wheelbarrow with as much water as it will hold. Deposit in upstream drain cover.
Good idea, certainly for flushing the 'trap'.
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>> It started with the fatberg we inherited.
I don't think in any of the houses we've lived I've had a single drain type fault. Interesting that some houses are more affected than others.
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>> >> It started with the fatberg we inherited.
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>> I don't think in any of the houses we've lived I've had a single drain
>> type fault. Interesting that some houses are more affected than others.
Well you know what they say about hard disk drives. There are two groups of computer user. The ones who've had a hard disk failure, and the ones who are going to have a hard disk failure. I suspect that can be extended to SSD's. Maybe drains are the same;)
Actually I think if you can avoid trees, and you have a decent fall, there's far less to go wrong. We failed on both those here.
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Interceptors (drains) - Zero
