PigletJohn advice needed please - cracked soil pipe

[ZedWoman]

I live in a house built in 1974. The floor is a poured concrete slab. There is an internaal soild pipe which is boxed in and can be accessed behind a panel with the stopcock in the hallway, near the front door. On the other side of the boxed in bit is the downstairs loo.

We have noticed some signs of damp on the inside wall of the downstairs loo against the wall behind the soil pipe. On investigation (and the use of many torches and mirrors) we have discovered that there is a crack at the base of the soil pipe. The pipe is ceramic at floor level up to about 25 cm where it joins with a collar to the sections above which are plastic. The crack (vertical) starts at about 8cm above the ground and runs up about 12 cm to just under the collar. The pipe is weeping water slightly (no obvious smell).

Is there anyting that can be done to repair it or are we going to have to knock the house down and start again? Should we call a plumber or would we be better off with a drain person? Are we going to need a new mortgage?

Any help would be very, very, very gratefully received.

it is possible to cut off the damaged section from a glazed clay pipe and put a plastic collar in it, then reassemble the plastic stack from above with a sliding sleeve.

you need someone who is experienced in this work, a drain person will have done it more often. The risk is that the crack may get bigger during the work. There may be a modern tool like a diamond saw that will cut it cleanly. It is possible to reline cracked clay pipes but it is a specialist job.

It is more usual to find clay below ground.

Try to find someone by personal recommendation, and not by interweb advertising sites. Verify that the address and phone no are local.

I don't think they will actually help, but your water co may have a register of approved local businesses.

While you are waiting, I suppose you could stop using any water for a few hours, clean the crack very thoroughly with a toothbrush and dry it perfectly, then press Fernox LSX into and round the crack. It is a bodge but may work for a while.

Resign yourself to ripping off the boxing-in for access. You can make your new panels out of WPB ply and fix them using brass or stainless csk screws so they are easy to take of and replace without damage (unlike plasterboard and tiles). Ventilate the leaky section well to reduce damp.

First of all check all your insurance policies incase you are covered for this repair.

Thank you very much for the advice PigletJohn, I suspected this was going to be a messy job!

Moving I'll look at the house insurance, but I suspect it'll be put down to 'wear and tear'. We've had some bad experiences with house insurance in the past!

Quick update (if anyone is still reading).

My financial laziness has, for once, paid off. The overpriced BG 'plumbing and draingage' cover that I'd been meaning to cancel for about two years actually paid off! It turns out that the work was covered and the people with the very orange vans came out and fixed the stench pipe for us.

The panelling is a complete mess although they have refitted it (which isn't within the scope of work). I think we're going to need some filler...

OOI, what did they do?

They cut into the plastic pipe above the clay part and then put a fibre-glass (or something like it) liner down the damaged section. It was then 'expanded' in some way and stuck to the side of the pipe with an adhesive of some description (I wasn't there at the time - DH was working from home). They then replaced the plastic section with new plastic bit with elastomer collars above and below.

Hopefully it will work...

Always good when threads have updates!