More on Bathroom Plumbing

The bathroom plumbing is now nearly complete. The main two remaining items are the pipework to the shower (not yet purchased) and the waste plumbing for the bath. The latter has proved a problem because the popup waste that we bought for this does not have a long enough thread. By the time it passes through the bath, then the banjo overflow connector, two rubber washers and the locking ring, there is no thread left onto which to screw the trap. I am trying to source an alternative with a longer body, but most suppliers do not give the dimensions for these kinds of item, hence you need to phone or email to check suitability. Of course, we could buy the one that was sold with the bath - we didn't do this because it is expensive, but we may have to eat humble pie.

For the basin and bath we are using "click-clack" wastes. I had not seen these before, but they are great. Instead of a plug on a chain, the plug is permanently fixed to a spring loaded mechanism inside the waste. You push it down to click it between two states - closed and open. It remains to be seen what it's reliability and longevity are like, but at least the concept is good.

Here are some pictures, taken from below, of the plumbing. In the first, the white waste on the left comes from the basin, and the black one on the right from the bath. The two copper pipe tails sticking down through the floor in bottom left are where the hot and cold feeds will be connected once it is all complete :

Here is where the wastes from the basin and bath meet the main pipe form the shower :

Waste and supply to the bidet with a spur to the toilet, and the waste outlet through the wall :

And finally the trap for the shower, showing how close the connection is from the bath :

We really hope this will not be a problem, being so close. You can imagine the water from the bath backing up in the outlet pipe (not helped by the lack of gradient) and coming up into the shower tray. You can see in this picture that all the "tee" pieces are directional, so should help the water on it's way down the right pipe. Time will tell whether this is going to work.

My other slight concern, that you may have noticed, is that I have 3 different types of waste pipe, from three different manufacturers - grey, white and black, with a mix of fittings too. This wasn't a concern to me until I read the small print on my bottle of solvent, which said to ensure you use the right kind of solvent for the right type of pipe. I had no idea there are differences. Once again, time will tell whether I have caused myself a problem here.