The request comes up constantly in the larger Edwardian houses around W5: a second lavatory downstairs, in the space under the stairs or off the rear lobby, in a house where the only one is on the first floor. The obstacle is rarely room. It is that the drain runs down the other side of the building, and the floor is solid.
Check gravity before assuming a pump
A conventional connection is always the better outcome, so the first half hour goes on finding out whether one is possible. That means locating the soil stack or the drain run outside, lifting the nearest inspection cover, and working out whether a full-bore waste can be taken from the proposed position with a continuous fall and no more bends than the run will tolerate. In a side-return lobby the answer is sometimes yes and nobody had looked. Where the stack is genuinely on the far elevation and the floor is a slab, a pumped or macerating unit becomes the sensible route rather than the lazy one.
What such a unit will and will not take
A unit sized for a lavatory alone is a different machine from one intended to take a basin or a shower as well, and the two are not interchangeable. Every additional appliance has to be declared before anything is ordered, along with how far and how high the discharge has to travel. The rule that decides the life of the installation is simpler than any specification: nothing goes down it but what the household produced and paper. Wipes, cotton pads and cleaning cloths are what seize the cutter, and a household that will not commit to that is better steered back towards a gravity solution.
The discharge pipe is the part that fails
Small-bore pipe is run vertically first, as close to the unit as possible, then across at a continuous fall to the point of connection. Long horizontal runs that dip and rise leave standing water that hardens, and every unsupported sag becomes a blockage eventually. Clips go in at close centres, long sweep bends are used instead of sharp elbows, an isolating valve is fitted where the pipe leaves the unit, and access is provided at any change of direction that cannot be reached otherwise. The route is agreed before the room is finished, because a pipe boxed into a stud wall with no access point gets regretted.
Noise, and where the unit sits
These units are audible and run on for a minute or so after each use. Behind the pan in a cupboard with a lined door is much quieter than in an open recess, and the wall it backs onto matters: a bedroom on the other side will hear every cycle. Matting under the unit and clips that isolate the discharge pipe from the studwork make a real difference and cost almost nothing at the time of fitting.
Power, and who connects it
A unit of this kind needs a permanent supply on a fused connection, not a plug trailing to a socket in the hall, and its position in a room containing sanitary fittings brings the wiring rules for those zones into play. That part is for an electrician, and it is planned alongside the pipe route rather than added afterwards.
A small internal room needs air
A cloakroom under the stairs usually has no window, so mechanical extract with an overrun and an undercut door are what keep it dry. Used once or twice a week, the trap can also dry out and let the drain into the room, which is worth knowing before anyone blames the unit. Where a windowless room has already grown dark patches in the corners and along the ceiling line, the surface needs proper treatment rather than repainting, and that is the ground covered by fully insured damp and mould treatment in Ealing. A dried trap in warm weather also brings drain flies, which breed in the film inside the pipe and are cleared as a separate exercise by pest control team in Ealing.
Sequence, and what to have ready
The order is drain investigation, then pipe route, then first fix for power and water, then the room, then the unit. Charging follows the time on site and the complexity of the run rather than the fittings, and the pan, basin and unit are chosen by the household once the route is known. Cutting into a solid floor or a masonry wall generates dust that travels through a whole house, so the clean afterwards is separate work covered by Hammersmith after builders cleaning services. The same alterations in the surrounding districts are carried out by our handyman in West London, and the wider range of jobs available appears on our national handyman service.
