The Brew Cabin

My outside soil pipe has colapesed under ground and i have asked a contractor for a quote,and was wondering if it is easy to do myself, can anybody give me any advise as to how to go about this,when you think it through it seams quite simple but need some help.
thanks for your time and a great site

Do you mean the whole thing has disappeared underground? Iif so your house is probably over a mine shaft and you should grab your precious belongings and leg it.

However if the socket into which it fits has broken, its faoirly easy to dig down to good pipe and get a collar to fit on it. There are rubberised collars (well neoprene actually) which clamp onto stoneware pipes, and most plastic underground pipes have different fittings for joining to soil stacks. FInd out what you need, and then pop down to your local builders' merchants.

no not the down pipe the main pipe under ground has colapsed about half way up my garden

I have a similar problem, sort off. I need to replace my old svp (it's made of asbestos) so I have dug around the base of the pipe exposing the old glazed clay pipe it is connected to. But the clay pipe is smothered in concrete, and getting a clean edge to fit the neoprene collar to is going to be nightmare. I'm a bit concerned about whacking the concrete off with a sledge because the pipe runs directly under my conservatory and if the pipe cracks along its length, I could never replace it. Any advice? Thanks

This is probably not an approved method, so don't let your BCO see, but the way I did this was to make a cardboard tube (used an old cereal carton) which fitted in the end of the broken pipe, with half of it protruding upwards. I glued it in place with PVA. When it was dry I slotted a proper pipe socket onto the sticking out bit, and put concrete round the whole thing. My thinking was that in time the cardboard would go soggy and flush away. Last I heard it was still holding up.

(Edited by danensis at 12:14 pm on July 2, 2004)