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Impey shower trap does not seal


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At great expense I have just bought two Impey wet room shower trays, Impey waste fittings for them and the tanking kits.

 

I have discovered a problem with the waste fittings, they don't appear to make an air tight seal.

 

As a test, I ran water through one so the trap mechanism was full, and gently blew into the waste, expecting to hear glug glug glug as it blew air bubbles through the water trap.  Instead I just hear a hiss, and feel almost no resistance to blowing through it.

 

This is the waste fitting

 

impey_trap_1.thumb.jpg.fca33a94751ef4f80127cc57a7c3c662.jpg

 

The "trap" is made up of 2 parts

 

An outer bucket and an inner "tube" that dips down into the bucket.  Yes I can see how that works

 

impey_trap_2.thumb.jpg.3499c3c64f700f819870ceaa0c043e75.jpg

 

BUT that will only seal, if the O ring on the oval shaped dip tube forms an air tight seal to the main part of the waste fitting

 

impey_trap_3.thumb.jpg.e839ff86a9eaba3f55d8fb748a5ecc3a.jpg

 

It appears this one does not. It's not a particularly tight fit so there is no scope for the skinny little O ring to compress and make a seal.

 

My concern is not so much that it is going to let smells into the room, but rather more fundamental, that if Mr building control inspector insists on a further drain test before completion, it is going to fail.

 

Comments please.  In the mean time I will unpack the other one and see if it has the same "fault"

 

EDIT to add

 

I have checked the second one and it is much the same.  I was right about where it i leaking.  If you press and hold down the dip tube, it does seal, and you do get "glug glug glug" as you blow up the waste. But with either of them blow just a tiny bit too hard and the air pressure lifts the dip tube slightly and breaks the poor seal.

 

The only way I can see this ever passing a drain pressure test is if I place a heavy object on the dip tube.

 

Not impresses I am afraid to say. There should be a screw or other positive means to hold the thing in place and make the seal on that skinny O ring.

 

 

 

 

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I've fitted a few Impey trays, and I can't say I've ever noticed this but admittedly I've never done more than push it home and let folk use it. No complaints of stench etc have ever arisen so I can only assume this is a problem for the test, as you say. 

I know a lot of those type of buckets with the seal often lose the seal as it breaks with the regular removal and refitting where folk clean the trap a bit too often and aren't very careful. 

Have you contacted Impey yet ? It would be interesting to hear their POV. 

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I have got to the bottom of it.

 

If you push the dip tube bit in (the bit with the O ring seal) and just push it down in the middle (the obvious place), it does not seal. It is so flimsy that what happens is it bends in the middle the web between the two tubes until that bottoms out.  To get it fully home you have to push down hard on the two ends. Then it finally goes in far enough for the O ring to seal.

 

 I am willing to bet, 99% of these are in use with that bit just dropped in, not pushed down at the ends and not making a seal.  The 1% where it is sealed properly are people like me expecting it to have to pass a drain pressure test and have spent the time to work out why it is not sealing.

 

I continue to be underwhelmed by the design and engineering of this. It annoys the hell out of me when I encounter things like this that with a simple and obvious change could be so much better.

 

If I get any drain pressure test issues with these I will be re opening this thread.

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14 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I continue to be underwhelmed by the design and engineering of this. It annoys the hell out of me when I encounter things like this that with a simple and obvious change could be so much better.

 

I seem to find this with almost everything I purchase, it doesn’t seem that until the mk3 version comes out that they get it right. 

Kind of puts you off buying a new product until you have heard that they have fixed all the issues. 

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I had exactly the saw issue when air testing one of the bathrooms.  When we put pressure on to the system small bubbles came out the seal.  Between that an the AAV I wasted a whole morning trying to find the leak. 

I did read somewhere in the instructions that all the seals need to be treated with a supplied grease wipe before fitting. I thought this would only be the trap to tray seal but maybe it's this one as well. 

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  • 3 years later...

An update on this old thread.

 

I was doing a dry run in preparation for my final BC drain test.  So I start pressurising the drainage and it is pumping up nicely until it got to about 70mm and then suddenly lost all pressure.  I thought I had just blown the water out of a trap so I went round and ran some water down all of them, but still it now would not pressurise.  Time for some more investigation.

 

I found it was one of the Impey drains, much as I suspected it is barely fit for purpose.  On one of the trays, the bit pictured above with the O ring had popped out under pressure.  Push it back and pump it up again and the same happens.  This is clearly not going to impress BC if this keeps happening.

 

So I have engineered bodged a solution, a temporary clip that exerts pressure on this part to hold it down.  Drains pump up now and hold pressure.

 

In real life, it is not going to blow out under normal operation, but as I feared from over 3 years ago, it might cause issues during a drain pressure test.

 

No I never did get around to contacting Impey for a solution but perhaps now i will.

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