To ask for your advice - blocked toilet, broken soil pipe under house, autistic DD and new dog!

[Plumbingcrisis]

Have name changed for this because I need to keep the details accurate, but I'm a long term MN reader and poster.

DD is 15, autistic, getting an assistance dog who is due to move in with us permanently on Wednesday. This was already a huge deal and quite stressful all round (the dog will help her enormously in due course, but the first few weeks and months will be tricky with all of the extra demands and routine changes). But we were just about on track to be ready with doggy preparations.

However, our upstairs toilet has become blocked. Fortunately we have another downstairs, but DD isn't coping well with this as she normally avoids the downstairs loo like the plague. She's also waking me in the night to take her for a wee, scared to go downstairs on her own.

We've had the drain guy out today and the soil pipe is blocked and cannot be unblocked because it's damaged. Looks like we will have to pull up the conservatory floor, dig down, fix the pipe, get a new floor etc. I am freaking out, I've contacted the home insurance but won't hear back until tomorrow and have no idea what they're going to say. I've never even made a claim before.

I think I'm going to have to postpone the arrival of the dog, I can't see how we can stay calm and get her settled into her new home when we've got workmen in digging up the conservatory. The cats are going to freak out about the dog, and also about the work, and I'm worried about the impact on them of having both things happen at once. Even getting the dog outside to the back garden to toilet will be tricky, as the way to the garden is through the conservatory! DD isn't happy. But I don't think IABU to say we need to postpone.

My actual AIBU though is to ask - AIBU to not know how how this stuff works, and please can you offer any advice?

Will my home insurers promptly organise everything for me, and quickly?

Or are they going to tell me to get a bunch of quotes and send them in and then have delays while they fanny about deciding what/whether they're going to pay?

And if they do expect me to get quotes etc, who do I even contact to get a floor pulled up and a concrete dug out and a soil pipe fixed?

And how do I generally stay sane with all of this?! We have no family support locally. Can't just move out and stay elsewhere anyway even if we haven't got the dog yet, because we can't leave the cats. I just feel like I'm on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

A friend of mine ‘fosters’ puppies, training, socializing etc….last 2 have gone on to be assistance dogs for autistic children….great service!

Sign up with British Gas home care and pay for the plumbing option think it covers drains

I would make all the phone calls today and see what the situation is and the timescale for getting any work done because I suspect you might well find there is a bit of a wait for it to start and the dog could well have settled in sufficiently by then.

We own a drainage firm.

To talk you through how this would work:

We would normally carry out a CCTV survey to assess damage and surrounds. Where at all feasible, use no-dog methods to extract as much of the spoil that may be currently blocking the pipe before installing a liner of a kind of GRP material to patch it up.

If digging is necessary, unless it is massive you are probably looking at a day's work, maybe two. Not all drainage firms have groundworks teams on staff, which may change things a little, but this is fairly bread and butter for us.

Unless your other toilet runs on a different line, you wouldn't be able to use either while the work was talking place for obvious reasons. Your other one may be on a different line, as otherwise it too would be blocking.

I can't imagine wait time being massive, dependent on where you are. Have a look for companies such as Metro Rod or Lanes.

It's annoying for sure but I don't see the big deal. You have another toilet so just don't go into the conservatory when the work is being done. It will probably only be a day or two of actual work.

Poor all of you, especially DD.

Going forward, please get DD a bin. Our autistic DD has her own special toilet bin where she can put all the period paper and whatever else into. Then she isn't self conscious or blamed for any plumbing mishaps. She gets vile, very heavy periods like a lot of girls her age- two squares of paper just wouldn't cut it.

The big deal is autism. You don’t understand which is fine, but admit that rather than belittling and minimising the massive difficulty the condition can cause.

Having a sewage pipe that runs under the conservatory seems like a bad idea to me.

Who owns this pipe ? Is it you or the sewage company ?

This may be a wild idea, but would it be possible to reroute the soil pipe on the outside of the house so that instead of going underneath the conservatory it empties into it at another point after it comes out from under the building ? That way you will always have access.

Not minimising. Autism or not the toilet is blocked, luckily there is another. No need to flap and cancel the dog. If it was my house, I'd be shitting in the garden!

Thank you, that'd be good but a new soil pipe could only go in if we put scaffolding up over the conservatory to allow them to fit and mount the pipe. Probably more expensive than digging up the conservatory floor.

Yes, dog will be fine, it's the human stress levels and the cats (who need time to get used to the dog without any additional stress) that are the issue.

Yeah we've got Hometree, they already sent Metrorod. But it only covers unblocking drains, they won't deal with collapsed ones and excavation works. British Gas Homecare (which we used to have, they send Dynorod rather than Metrorod) are the same.

That’s just not how autism works.

Thank you so much, this was a really helpful reply. I've got a bit of an update which I will post shortly, but I wanted to thank you as this was exactly the sort of advice I was looking for when I first posted yesterday. 🙏

We have a bin already but we've just had a chat now and are going to get two bins, one just for DD and her father won't ever go near it. It's the same issue here, she's needing a lot of paper to clean herself up with very heavy periods.

Thank you for this. Yes, autism is the big deal! And the arrival of an autism assistance dog, who needs calm and quiet to settle in.

And arranging to completely empty a room of furniture, lose use of the room, deal with tradesmen in and out of the house, extra distress for the nervous cats - well that's phasing me (a competent but autistic adult). It is very much a big deal for DD to cope with.

I don't actually know who owns the pipe, probably us. Hopefully us, actually, as it will avoid having to get United Utilities involved as well.

Yes, I agree, building a conservatory over existing sewage pipes wasn't ideal! It was the previous owners that did it.

I want to thank you for your contributions, but TBH it's very clear that you have no idea about all of this.

If you had a paraplegic teenager and a lift in your house for them and it broke... would you just say, "Wheelchair or not, you can use the ground floor of the house, no need to flap, just sleep on the kitchen floor"?

Update: thanks all for your help! Insurance company have been fab and are hopefully going to cover the costs, it'll just cost me the £500 excess. They have acted with lightning speed this morning and had their drainage guy here to survey the issue before lunchtime. He was fabulous and has unblocked the pipe enough that we can use the upstairs loo at least for wees. Just need to get a bin that we can put toilet paper in, as we'll risk another blockage otherwise. That alone helps massively, as DD will only have to use the downstairs loo occasionally (for No 2s).

He sent a camera down and there's a proper hole in the pipe, it's a bit f**ked really but he seemed hopeful that a big of digging outside in the garden and installation of a liner would be the most likely approach. We can cope with that. It'll only be if that fails that we have to dig up the conservatory, but if we can at least wee upstairs in the meantime we can potentially put that off for a few weeks (until things have settled with the new dog).

So it looks like we are OK to have DD's assistance dog join us this week, after all. And that of course is also massively stressful, but at least we've been preparing for that for a very, very long time!

Great update! I hope all the work goes smoothly and the dogs fits in well.

Sometimes they can line the pipe. They access from a point outside and put the liner up the pipe, inflate it then cure it- this may mean you do not need your conservatory floor dug up

That's great news OP. I had relining done too in my current home. The work took about 2 days in total. From memory, first they flushed/cleaned the pipes, then they had to dry for a day. Then relining took an hour or two and we couldn't use the pipes for about 24 hours afterwards whilst everything set but since then there has been no issues.

Have had issues with upstairs toilet blocking frequently

Recommend a big bin with bin liner in bathroom to put paper in

This is similar to what some other hot countries do where sewers are not able to cope.

It helps lots

Thanks, this is what we have done today! Trip to B&M, largish pedal bin now installed next to toilet for paper, and there are about 10 bright orange signs up reminding household members to put all paper in the bin. And to head downstairs instead if they need a shit. 🤣

Usually the home owner is responsible for the pipes but I had blockages last week, phoned Thames water with various questions and paid online for a drainage map snd the guy said thsmes water is responsible for my pipes! thus must be unusual but I hope he’s right