Protecting Flexible Toilet Waste from Rats/Vermin

[MarkClacton]

Hi everyone,

New to the forum! Hope everyone is having some down time just before Christmas!!

I have a toilet upstairs, which was put in about 4 years ago when we had an extension built. All was fine, until I noticed that the toilet was leaking. On inspection, I noticed that the toilet waste pipe, which is a straight flexible unit seemed to have perished in a couple of places and hence was leaking.

A quick run down to the local plumbers merchants and a new flexible waste was purchased, and within 15 minutes it was installed and forgotten about.

Fast forward two weeks, and the new flexible waste has failed in exactly the same way, but this time, on closer inspection, I can see there are a lot more holes in this one. The waste clearly is in a position that does not move about much, it at all, so there is no issue of chaffing/rubbing when the toilet is flushed so clearly the problem is elsewhere.

So, the only logical conclusion that I can come up with, is that I must have a rat/rodent coming up the soil pipe, into the flexible waste pipe and nibbling away at it!

I have had a quick google search for non return valves, but didn't seem to find much, and the ones I did find, seem to want to be fixed to the pan, and not to the soil pipe itself. I could fit one to the pan, but that would not prevent the rodents from getting at the flexible waste!

So, ideally, what I need is a flexible waste pipe with a non return valve at the end that joins onto my soil pipe - does anyone know of such a thing?

I don't fancy having to replace my existing waste pipe every 2 weeks at £15 a pop!

Any advice or guidance would be gratefully received.

Have a great Christmas everyone and thanks,

Mark.

 

[rpm]

Welcome to the forum Mark. There was a thread on this fairly recently and If I remember correctly you can buy an anti rodent pipe which has a wire mesh protection. I`m sure someone more informed will be along later.

 

[Bronze_tap]

Hi everyone,New to the forum! Hope everyone is having some down time just before Christmas!!I have a toilet upstairs, which was put in about 4 years ago when we had an extension built. All was fine, until I noticed that the toilet was leaking. On inspection, I noticed that the toilet waste pipe, which is a straight flexible unit seemed to have perished in a couple of places and hence was leaking.I don't fancy having to replace my existing waste pipe every 2 weeks at £15 a pop!Any advice or guidance would be gratefully received.Mark.

So first we need to find a way of blocking the rats access to yours sever system. Some sort of a metal valve /grid at interceptor should do it, but the main problem is to have it in the servicable position, because it may be quite prone to the blockage by the toilet discharge.Also one should keep in mind that rats can gnaw any plastics, so only the cast iron/steel/ceramic pipes are fully resistant to it.I used to have similar problem myself, in a ground floor toilet in the extension, but there the criters were diving into the WC bowl, and made a nest in the upright activator washing machine. In the process of the nest construction they had chewed up a few wires, and used some clothing too, so the process of fixing the washer up was really unpleasant...So do keep them out.So here we have a few solutions:Get a proper pipe instead of the flexi.Block possible entry points outside (if possible).Install an sever ultrasonic rodent repeler somewhere in the stack/interceptor. (if it is a 12V waterproof model). Add an extra tee for it?

 

[lame plumber]

find out why you have rats nearby, rubbish build up, bird feeders, overgrown garden resolve the problem and they will poke off