blocked pipes

[geoff_5040010]

there must be many ways to unblock the waste pipes of my caravan as the water is draining away slowly. can i have some suggestions please. thank you. geoff.

 

[Tony A.]

use a good old fashioned rubber sucker thing in the sink, it freed up my freinds van pipes really easily

 

[chris_5068897]

use a good old fashioned rubber sucker thing in the sink, it freed up my freinds van pipes really easily

Are you sure the pipe is blocked? There isn't much 'fall' on a waste pipe from one side of the van to the other. If a there is a loop at all, especially where the pipe exits the floor and fluid accumulates in the loop, this would slow things down too, and could be made worse if the van is not level side to side

 

[MickC1]

Geoff

Has it always been slow, or was it quicker at one time and gradually slowed down. If it was the latter then it may be something like fat blocking it. If liquid fat is poured down the sink, as soon as it hits the cold pipes it solidifies. So you could try running hot water straight from the tap down the sink for a few minutes to see if it makes any difference.

Other than that you could try taking the pipework apart under the caravan and see if there is any thing obvious blocking it.

If however it's always been slow then it could be as Chris has said. I altered the pipework under by Bailey as the shower tray had a huge U-bend under it which slowed the drain from the shower right down, and the pipes were all attached to the floor without any fall. I therefore took them all off and fitted progressively thicker spacers to the attachment brackets so that there was a fall of several inches at the end. That worked a treat. I also changed the pipe outlet positions at the same time as there were 2 outlets at the back of the caravan, 4ft apart. Absolutely useless. I often had to fight through the scrub at the back of the pitch in order to get to the waste containers, and if the pitch sloped downhill from the back to the front, it sometimes meant that the outlets were only inches off the ground, so they were lower than the inlet to the waste container. (I'm sure that the designers of the caravans never actually test them). I therefore moved the outlets to just behind the off side wheel. Much better, easier to get to and no problems regardless of which way the pitch slopes.

 

[DerekRDG]

Hi Geoff

I had this sort of problem and got over it by replacement of the fluted pipes with inch & quarter domestic pipe (glued joints with about an inch fall)

Hope this may help

Derek

 

[HomerMarge]

Are you sure the pipe is blocked? There isn't much 'fall' on a waste pipe from one side of the van to the other. If a there is a loop at all, especially where the pipe exits the floor and fluid accumulates in the loop, this would slow things down too, and could be made worse if the van is not level side to side

This is the problem we had, we also thought the pipe was bloked, but removed the loop on the outlet pipes as the waste was also trying to run up hill and also removed one of the screw tops on the waste container for air flow and everything worked fine after that.

 

[milliemop]

first of all get rid of the old fluted piping----it clogs up and smells after a while, it also is never fitted properly and sags at various intervals catching all sort of "stuff"----I used 22m hep (plastic) piping attached to the floor with clips, it is very flexible so you dont have any right angel bends. Attach it on to your sink drain pipe at the bottom---you might find that you will have to fit small distance pieces (small 19mm wooden blocks) to give the pipe clearance from the floor, works a treat when the jobs done--

 

[WatsonJohnG]

Try Mr Muscle drain cleaner and plenty of hot water