by Gary Mays | Sep 14, 2016 | Bathrooms, Blocked drain, City of Gold Coast, Consumer Issues, Drain Odours, Gold Coast Plumbing, Health Issues, Insurance, Plumbers, Plumbers Gold Coast, Plumbing Emergencies, Plumbing Maintenance, Septic Tanks, Sustainable Plumbing, Toilets
Like every other Gold Coast plumber, we here at Whywait Plumbing are seeing a horrendous increase in blocked drains due to the skyrocketing popularity of so-called “flushable” wipes. The term “flushable” is a catchy phrase and a favourite
sales pitch presenting an image of convenience and hygiene.
But the reality of what happens to flushable wipes once they are flushed down a toilet pan is that they do not dissolve like toilet paper.
In fact, they remain intact, and these pieces of non-woven fabric when regularly used are blocking toilets, blocking house drains and blocking the City of Gold Coast sewer system.
It is gratifying to see local media taking the lead and highlighting the absolute disaster that flushable wipes are to our local Gold Coast environment. In a recent interview with Robyn Wuth that I did for the story “Gold Coast Sewerage Treatment Plant Wiped Out Once A Week” which was published in the weekly Gold Coast Sun and online at the Gold Coast Bulletin I was accurately quoted as saying wipes are an “environmental nightmare”.
Frustratingly for many businesses such as restaurants the increase in customers using their toilets and flushing wipes down the toilet has seen an increase in the number of blocked drains they are experiencing. For many businesses, the repeated flushing of wipes has resulted in costly and inconvenient consequences.
The photo on the left clearly illustrates the problem where the toilets were all blocked at a Gold Coast McDonalds restaurant. Retrieving them in this instant was critical as they had created an interwoven tail of toilet paper held together with flushable wipes from the blocked toilet all the way into the sewer drains.
Wet wipes or disposable wet wipes are a new phenonium having only gained popularity in the last ten years. The early versions of these wipes were slow to gain widespread acceptance until manufacturers re-introduced them for a broader range of applications other than being just baby wipes.
Now they are available for multiple cleaning and hygiene tasks in the home and in workplaces with them being packaged in convenient carry cases that fit into handbags, glove boxes etc. and as a result, their popularity has skyrocketed.
Frustratingly for ourselves and many Gold Coast plumbers, the durability of new generation wipes has seen blockages increase as the disposable wet wipes now come with confusing names. As you can in the photo on the right, they collect together in a drain very quickly and are a nightmare for us to remove in commercial high rise buildings.
Sadly flushable is assumed to mean biodegradable to consumers who love their convenience. As a result, when wipes are flushed down the toilet, there is a misleading assumption that the wipe will be the same as toilet paper and dissolve.
For many of our clients flushable means just that, until the problems begin from repeated flushing of wipes. If they are lucky they only experience a toilet blockage but often it is a complete blocked drain that would never have occurred but for those appallingly named flushable wipes which are in reality non-flushable.
Trust me the only things that are flushable in your toilet are toilet paper, urine and faeces. If you wish to continue flushing wet wipes or flushable wipes in all their forms down your toilet, then I recommend you become a Whywait Plumbing Service Partner.
by Gary Mays | Sep 14, 2016 | Bathrooms, Blocked drain, City of Gold Coast, Consumer Issues, Drain Odours, Gold Coast Plumbing, Health Issues, Insurance, Plumbers, Plumbers Gold Coast, Plumbing Emergencies, Plumbing Maintenance, Septic Tanks, Sustainable Plumbing, Toilets
Flushable wipes are an environmental nightmare which is what I termed them in September 2015 when we here at Whywait Plumbing were seeing a horrendous increase in blocked drains.
At the same time, consumer advocacy group CHOICE published the results of their dirty testing of “flushable” wipes and cleaning cloths in their testing labs. CHOICE came to the same conclusions that plumbers had long learnt and that was that “flushable” wipes were in most cases NOT FLUSHABLE.
Last year we promoted to Whywait Plumbing clients to join the CHOICE campaign to get rid of “flushable” claims on products that aren’t safe to flush.
The worst offender in everyone’s eyes was the Kleenex brand. In fact, the website for Kleenex Cottonelle Flushable Cleansing Cloths For Kids claimed that the cloths break up in the sewerage system like toilet paper. As a result of this claim, CHOICE put it to the test and found that while toilet paper dissolves in a few minutes but the Kleenex wipes held together for over 21 hours.
Kleenex has responded to the CHOICE campaign by releasing an allegedly new and improved “flushable” wipes product. As a result, CHOICE has tested this new product and found nothing has changed. Kleenex new flushable wipes will still block your drains because they do not disintegrate like toilet paper.
CHOICE is now advocating that you don’t let your friends and family get caught by Kleenex and here’s what you can do:
1. Share on Facebook
2. Share on Twitter
When the CHOICE lab tests were widely published in all media last year, and the false Kleenex claims were exposed it sent a strong message to Kleenex. In fact, the message was so strong they apparently felt they needed to reinvent their “flushable” wipes.
But as CHOICE testing has found the “NEW” wipes are nowhere good enough to be considered safe to flush down your toilet. They are NOT FLUSHABLE, and they certainly do not disintegrate like toilet paper. As CHOICE states companies such as Kleenex need to deliver on their promises and should be prohibited from selling products that mislead consumers.
These Not-so-flushable Kleenex wipes put your homes sewer drains at risk of blockage still. As a community, we can and need to get these falsely marketed products off the supermarket shelves. That is why I urge you to tell your friends and family about the dangers of these dodgy Kleenex products to help keep your house drains, and the City of Gold Coast sewer drains flowing.
by Gary Mays | May 7, 2016 | DIY Plumbing, Health Issues, Insurance, Leaking Pipes, Plumbing Emergencies, Plumbing Maintenance
A recent phone call I received regarding suspected illegal plumbing from an insurance company assessor was a timely reminder of why property owners and property managers must ensure the following where any plumbing work is concerned:
- that all plumbing work on your property is undertaken by a licensed plumbing contractor
- that all legislated council inspections are undertaken and all fees paid
- get a copy of the Queensland Governments, Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) Form 4 compliance certificate that the plumber must lodge and pay the $29.70 fee
- and that all products such as taps and toilets are WaterMark and WELS approved products
In this particular incident, the assessor was verifying with us what the property owner had claimed after a child had undertaken some experimental work with a pull out kitchen spray hose. We were able to supply the documentation he was seeking and all was well.
But this is not always the case. We had a situation we had to rectify last year where the owner of a hairdressing salon broken every rule in the book and paid dearly for it when her salon was flooded.
Like us all, she was extremely busy. Needing to replace her taps on the hair washing basins she did a Google search and found the perfect taps online at half the price she was expecting to pay.
A week later the taps arrived with instructions on how to install them so she decided her husband could do the installation as he was a bit of a handyman. The following Sunday when the salon was shut her husband removed the faulty taps and after a few minor mishaps had the taps up and working by that evening all ready for the next days trading.
The taps were a huge improvement on the old ones because they actually worked with the water mixing beautifully to the right temperature at the touch of the handle. Everyone was happy – clients, employees and owners.
The salon owner and staff talked with their clients whilst doing their hair how great the new taps. A major topic of conversation was what a bargain they had been to buy online plus they had saved a fortune on employing a plumber by doing all the installation themselves.
Three months after the taps were installed the salon owner got a call at home on a Saturday morning just as she was leaving for work to say there was water coming out of the front door to her salon.
When she arrived at the salon the water was indeed pouring out of the door and everywhere else. Water was flowing continuously from a burst connection hose on one of the new taps. Luckily she knew where to turn the water off on the street. Unfortunately, the taps did not have individual control valves under the hot and cold connections despite it being a required installation of the taps instructions.
A flooded salon meant that she had to get her staff to cancel client appointments despite it being the busiest day of the week. Instead of it being a cash flow positive trading day it became cash-flow negative with staff cleaning up the salon in conjunction with a multitude of tradesman beginning rectification.
On Monday with the rectification work already underway the insurance companies assessor arrived to inspect the damage. As expected he was a model of empathy with her plight taking a number of photos of the damage to the salon.
The Salon owner showed the assessor the faulty tap which he checked over and agreed it was indeed the cause of her flooded salon.
The assessor then asked her where she had brought the mixer taps and who was the plumber who installed them. Proudly she explained how she had saved a fortune purchasing the taps online and that her husband had installed them so they had saved the cost of the plumber as well.
She also told the assessor she had emailed the online store where she had purchased them as they had no phone number demanding that they supply a replacement tap.
On Friday she received a letter from her insurance company not only declining to cover the damage to the salon but also declining coverage on her business interruption insurance. Their reasons were she had through her own negligence directly caused the damage which also caused her business to have to temporarily cease trading. The negligence was:
- the installation of non-compliant taps with no Australian WaterMark or WELS certification in the salon’s basins
- the said taps were installed by a non-licensed person with no compliant contractor registration in contravention of the Plumbing and Drainage Act 2002 and Queensland Building Services Authority Act 1991.
So the bargain taps and the do it yourself plumbing installation turned into a financial nightmare for the salon owner. The repairs and rectification cost in excess of $30000. In addition, there was the loss of eight days trading plus the loss of clients who went and found a new salon.
You get what you pay for is an old cliche but with plumbing its definitely true. If the salon owner had complied with the law and done what she ultimately had to do, in employing a licensed plumber to install compliant mixer taps with individual control valves at the connection point she would have had not a single problem. Even if she had still had a burst connector flexihose to the tap her insurance coverage would have covered all of her costs as would have the public liability insurance policy of the plumber.
Ultimately its always to your advantage to:
- employ a licensed plumber and
- make sure the products he installs are WaterMark and WELS compliant and
- ensure you get a copy of the Queensland Governments, Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) Form 4 compliance certificate that the plumber must lodge and pay the $29.70 fee.
If you do all of the above you will never have a problem with an insurance claim being rejected because you have a paper trail for the assessor to follow. And I’m sure you will be surprised but our salon owner never received a new tap or any reply from the online store.
by Gary Mays | Oct 14, 2015 | Bathrooms, Blocked drain, City of Gold Coast, Consumer Issues, Gold Coast Plumbing, Health Issues, Plumbers, Plumbers Gold Coast, Plumbing Emergencies, Septic Tanks, Sustainable Plumbing, Toilets
We were happy and astounded that we received so much positive feedback about our September newsletter and blog on flushable wipes being an environmental disaster.
A few people felt the photos were a bit too graphic. But let me assure you there is no other way of illustrating what a flushable wipe looks like that is blocking up a drain or toilet.
It was gratifying to see that a week after I wrote the newsletter about the disasters being caused by flushable wipes that Choice announced their 2015 “Shonky Awards” with Kleenex flushable wipes being one of the 8 “winners”.
Like every other plumber worldwide we at Whywait Plumbing are continuing to see a horrendous increase in blocked drains due to the sky-rocketing popularity of these so-called “flushable” wet wipes.
Unfortunately, the term “flushable” is a catchy phrase and a favourite sales pitch presenting an image of convenience and hygiene with the wipes being flushed down the toilet.
But the reality remains that the flushable wipes, once they are flushed down a toilet pan, do not dissolve like toilet paper. They stay intact, and these pieces of non-woven fabric when regularly used are blocking toilets, blocking house drains and blocking the City of Gold Coast sewer system.
It is positive that Choice has continued with their action to stop the sale of ipes labelled “flushable” by producing a very informative and graphic video titled “Flushable wipes – Are they flushable?”
But the facts are that flushable is assumed to mean biodegradable by consumers who love their convenience. As a result, when wipes are flushed down the toilet, there is a misleading assumption that the wipe will be the same as toilet paper and dissolve.
In fact, Choice surveyed 1679 Australians in July and asked: “If a pack of disposable wet wipes is labelled as ‘flushable’, would you expect the wipes to not cause any blocking or clogging of the toilet?”
As we would expect 73% of those surveyed answered yes with 67% saying that they would expect flushable wet wipes to disintegrate “like toilet paper”.
Choice, as you can see in the video, put the flushable product claims to the test. They used an agitation device designed to provide an environment similar to your sewer drain system.
Choice put 12 brands of wet wipes made up of 11 which were labelled as “flushable” and one that was labelled “do not flush” into the agitator along with standard 4-ply toilet paper. The agitator then ran for six hours.
The brands Choice tested that were labelled as ‘flushable’:
- Sorbent Clean and Fresh Wipes
- Sorbent Flushable Wipes – Kids
- Kleenex Cottonelle Cleansing Cloths
- Kleenex Cottonelle Flushable Cleansing Cloths for Kids
- Confidence Adult Wipes
- Woolworths Select Flushable Toilet Wipes
- Coles Bathroom and Toilet Wipes
- White King Flushable Bathroom Wipes
- Vagisil Feminine Flushable Wipes
- Harpic White and Shine Flushable Toilet Wipes
- Naty by Nature Babycare Flushable Wipes
As expected the toilet paper started to break up within 90 seconds, then disintegrated entirely as required. All that was left was milky opaque water.
But all the wipes remained completely intact with no sign of them breaking up or losing any strength.
Choice is now running a campaign asking you to be a flush buster and wipe misleading claims off supermarket shelves. Click on the link below to register your support.
Trust me the only things that are flushable in your toilet are toilet paper, urine and faeces.
I can only repeat if you wish to continue flushing wet wipes in all their forms down your toilet then I recommend you become a Whywait Plumbing Service Partner.
by Gary Mays | Mar 28, 2015 | City of Gold Coast, Consumer Issues, Gold Coast Plumbing, Insurance, Leaking Pipes, Plumbers, Plumbers Gold Coast, Plumbing Emergencies, Plumbing Maintenance, Sustainable Plumbing, Tree roots in drains
Tree roots in a stormwater drain causing localised flooding is an issue confronted by many homeowners, particularly during our summer storms on the Gold Coast.
So imagine the issues faced when the tallest commercial office building on the Gold Coast at 118m tall and with 27 floors above ground and five levels of basement parking gets roots in their drains.
Well, this scenario is precisely what has occurred at the Gold Coast’s premier office building, GDI Property Group’s refurbished “50 Cavill Avenue” in the heart of Surfers Paradise on the corner of Cavill Avenue and Beach Road. High profile tenants at 50 Cavill Avenue include Channel 9, Mantra, CBRE and Regus.
As you can see in the photo on the right, 50 Cavill Avenue is indeed a prestigious office building with a great street appearance. Part of that appearance is a magnificent fig tree in a grassed area on the very corner of the property at the Beach Road entrance. The tree can be seen on the bottom right of the photo.
Unfortunately, over the years since being transplanted onto the site, the tree roots of this beautiful tree had slowly but surely gained access to 50 Cavill Avenues primary stormwater drainage system.
Stormwater drains are a critical part of any building and are designed to comply with AS 3500.3:2015 to ensure that the materials used, the design, installation and testing of roof drainage systems, surface drainage systems and subsoil drainage systems will always work.
Unfortunately, as we frequently witness, the stormwater drains are installed not in accordance with the designs causing flooding.
This is in the main due to the fact that stormwater drains are inspected and certified by private building certifiers, rather than council plumbing inspectors which in our experience frequently means they are never inspected to ensure they are compliant.
Every summer after storms and massive rainfall events, we see the consequences of poorly designed, poorly installed and poorly maintained stormwater drains all over the Gold Coast. Stormwater drains like most plumbing are hidden underground so are easily overlooked until the summer storms arrive.
As you can see from the photos above and below on the left the tree roots infiltration at 50 Cavill Avenue is extensive inside these 100mm stormwater drains. The tree roots in these photos are more than 30m away from the fig tree and are perfectly formed plus being incredibly strong, requiring power saws to cut through them.
The process to rectify these drains at 50 Cavill Avenue is hugely complex. We have had to hydro excavate extensive areas of grass and soil to locate where the tree roots are entering the stormwater drainage system whilst at the same time protecting the Moreton Bay fig tree.
The photo on the right shows a 6m length of tree roots lying on the concrete floor that we removed that were utterly encompassing the entire interior of a 100mm pipe.
We are all aware we have had plenty of rain this summer, and that stormwater drains have been tested to the limit.
But you should never be complacent where your stormwater drains are concerned primarily if you have trees on your property or neighbouring properties. Infiltration by tree roots similar to what has happened at 50 Cavill Avenue can slowly sneak up on you if you are not vigilant.
Overflowing, slow draining or gurgling drains are your warning signs whenever you experience a rainfall event. They should never be ignored as they seldom go away and should be investigated immediately.
If you suspect your stormwater drains are not working effectively contact Whywait Plumbing now on (07) 5580 4311 to organise a site inspection to ensure, you have fully functioning stormwater drains.
