Plumber / Plumbing Company

[Sanpatong]

Does anyone know of a decent plumber or plumbing company who would know things like where/how the plumbing system needs to be vented, cess pit issues and the like?

[Bill97]

New construction or old house redo? One story or two? Do you speak Thai well enough to ask your questions and understand answers in Thai? Are you looking for information or for somebody to do a job?

[Sanpatong]

Existing house, 2 storey. Just had the bathroom redone, and very nicely too, new BIG bathtub installed which is all very nice. Except that so much water is draining when emptying the bath that it leads to all kinds of interesting noises on the downstairs bathroom/ floor drain hole, and sometimes even some water coming back up at the ground floor drain hole.

So I'm thinking either pipes need declogging, or there's an issue with the venting system (such as: not having a venting system ) or a cess pit issue.

The people who did the bathroom are very good furniture makers, tilers, painters, designers and so on, but I'm less sure about their plumbing skills. As I know nothing about it as well, I thought to go ask someone who knows about such things.

[Bill97]

Venting might, just might, improve the noise issue. It depends on the piping in place and to know about that you would probably have to have access to see the existing piping. Can you access the piping without cutting into walls and floors? Venting in older homes is not common and even new construction is not vented to western standards. If it was, you would likely see vent pipes comming up through roofs which I have never seen in Thailand. I just had a new house plumbed and the plumber, who does a lot of quality house installations, had limited knowledge of venting compared to the data in a very basic plumbing book.

First you should make sure your pipes are clean, you can get stuff like Draino, use it and see if you have improvement. Be sure to clean the pipe from the downstairs drain to your waste water tank (cess pit) well as this may be the problem causing water to come up downstairs. Also check the waste water tank when water comes up downstairs, if it is full then you need to have more waste water space to recieve the bath water or pump out and clean the cess pit. That is your easiest fix. Alternatively you may need to separate the drain from upstairs so it does not connect to the downstairs drains but instead goes straight to the waste water tank.

Piping or venting repairs probably require cutting walls and floors to get to the pipes which is a lot of work and expense and finding matching tiles to replace cut ones is difficult if not impossible. Try the easy stuff first then decide if you can live with the result.

[Sanpatong]

Thanks for that!!! I was beginning to suspect this to be the case.. Actually I think it already improved a lot after I further opened the bath overflow-hole (which has a chromium cover that you can screw further open or shut. I guess this allows some air to get in..

Will also do the cesspit thing but as I have guests at the moment I will wait until they leave.

[ProThaiExpat]

Very common problem, I hear the kitchen sink draining in the bathroom shower drain as they have a common drain pipe at some point. Not only are pipes not vented here but few showers have "traps" those things most often seen under the kitchen sink. If there is a trap in the shower, no sounds will be heard.

I wished I knew these things when I built. No problem venting into the huge attic space, and that may be done so you wouldn't see the vent pipes on the roof.

[Bill97]

Yes it is very common. Most showers are trapped at the drain cover to eliminate smelly air, not with a U trap under the drain cover in the piping. Venting into the attic space has potential problems. Moisture and the possibility of accumulation of explosive gases specially if a drain pipe connects to a toilet drain which you can not be sure of unless you can see all the piping. Gas is a problem also if the septic tank for the toilet is connected to the tank for the shower/tub/sink or if there is only one tank.

Edited July 21, 2007 by Bill97