Bearino

Hi folks, I've been having issues with a leak in my kitchen for some time. Reached out to insurance who were not useful, and several trades have either not resolved the problem or didn't want to get involved. Currently it looks like this: Leak site after insurance investigation Insurance broke through the plasterboard to try and find what's behind, a soil pipe. Have attached an image and video of the exposed soil pipe. This is in a flat roof extension to my kitchen. On the right of the beam is the original house, and directly above is the toilet. Above this, on the roof you can see that the vent pipe leads into a box. The box is directly behind the toilet. The box is sealed, originally with felt, and then the insurance guys covered it with some strange sealant that's now started peeling: The "box" Inside the box: Soil pipe coming out of the toilet, covered in bitumen Inside the box is the soil pipe. It's a strange angle, and it's been suggested that it might be ceramic. It's also covered with something horrible, bitumen perhaps. Close inspection of the pipe showed that it seems to have slipped, there might be as much as an inch gap between the pipes, but the bitumen is hiding it: Signs of slippage What I suspect is happening is the box itself is sealed and weather tight. However, within the box, underneath the pipe, is not sealed. The pipe is leaking straight into the house. I've so far had difficulty getting this fixed because it needs the roofer and the plumber to work together. Given this, I'm thinking that I should crack the box, remove the pipe, and seal the roof underneath the pipe so that I can remove the box. That gives me free access to the plumbing and a plumber can fix it without the pressure of getting a roof weathertight. I have a number of questions I hope people can help with: Is there a reason that the pipes would have been covered in bitumen? Is there a good reason for building the box around the pipe, rather than sealing the roof underneath it? I presume it might be because replacing the roof is going to be difficult with the pipe in the way. Should it be possible to erect a tarp to keep the area dry, or am I going to have to time this around weather? Is felting this sensible given I have no experience with a torch etc? The box is less than 0.5m2, is there another option that would be easier given my lack of experience? I'm considering just cracking the box then sealing the edges with epoxy as that seems to have worked for the insurance roofers... Do I need to give any consideration to the state of things within the box eg sodden wood? Can you make any sense of the soil pipe exposed in the kitchen? There's a strange mass around it and I'm not sure if I should be opening this up further as a possible second leak Thanks all IMG_1170_trim.mp4