At the end of December, the soil stack at the back of the house clogged again. It turns out whoever installed the guttering down pipe did a shit job (pardon the pun), because they never flush-trimmed the down pipe where it entered the soil stack. Instead, it stuck into the stack by several inches, resulting in two blockages inside of 4 months.
Compounding this is the fact the gas/plumbing company hooked the condensate pipe from the boiler into the soil stack. When the stack clogs, the water easily goes half a metre higher than the top of the boiler, and I’m sure you can see where this leads.
On Thursday, when the stack clogged, the water was dripping out of the boiler. The boiler has refused to work since then. Yesterday, I was able to arrange for a gas/plumber guy to show up today, and today we discovered that the condensate drain had been clogged solid with toilet paper, and further investigation showed toilet paper in the condensate trap.
Even with the condensate line cleared from the outside, we couldn’t get water to flow from the flue to the condensate trap; boiler guy said it should have flowed out easily. Instead, it dripped in slowly, then faster, and then flooded out of the trap instead of going down the drain.
Boiler guy was not impressed with the installation of the condensate drain into the soil stack. I’m not impressed with the previous company boiler person coming out to look at the boiler the first time this happened, and when queried on the condensate drain went “no, that’s fine” – it clearly wasn’t given I had water dripping out of the boiler!
So, boiler guy reckons the shit water has gone up the condensate drain, and possibly into the boiler assembly. Taking the boiler apart would cost probably half a new boiler (installed), and there’s no guarantee it could be fixed. New boiler will be installed on Saturday, and the folks doing the install have proved me some fan heaters to help warm the bedroom etc until then.
I’ve done a rough flush trim on the down pipe, but will get a boss from the hardware store (or Screwfix) to do a proper mating job.
What a shit start to the year.