Drains. Did I Mention I Hate Drains?

"You Deal With Your Turds, David, I'm Dealing With Mine!"

Another little problem hits Penguin Towers, and as I'm not an MP I have to pay someone to sort it out or sort it out myself.

Being both mean and skint, and knowing my way around the plumbing here because I replumbed the house, I always try and sort things out myself, although as I get older I do this with less and less enthusiasm.

The ensuite to the main bedroom runs off a Saniflo Plus macerator, which for anyone unfamiliar with these, can be regarded as a downstream food processor, pumping waste away after shredding it via small bore pipework, which is a whole lot easier to run under floorboards and through joists than 4" drain pipes.

The Saniflo is, like me, getting old and cranky. It will have to be replaced at some point, but I don't wish to do that just yet. Apart from the money, there's the work involved.

And this morning the bloody thing just churned and whirred and spewed a foul concoction back into the toilet pan. So I switched it off, and went down to B&Q for a litre of One Shot, which is mostly sulphuric acid.

Then I gradually worked up enough interest to take the cladding off and expose the pipework, and carefully using a funnel tipped a litre of One Shot down the (presumably) blocked smallbore pipe.

I shall now have to go and add some water, and hope that this burns through any blockage.

I'm not sure what my options are if that fails, but I do not expect them to be pleasant.

On the whole I think David Cameron has an easier and more pleasant task.

The Penguin

UPDATE: As luck would have it, the One Shot seems to have sorted it. Seriously nasty stuff, but effective. One moment of serious worry, as when re-connected and switched back on, level of "concoction" (possibly a Brownian Motion?) began to drop, so I flushed the cistern.....and the "water" level rose almost to the point of disaster before dropping away to normal....big sigh of relief. Thanks for tip, will try the Harpic Active diet.