France in Focus

Anyone know what this would be called in France? We don't know whether to get more rods (are they the same as chimney sweeping rods?) or get the professionals in. Our Spring water supply has a small blockage somewhere (usually some roots have lodged inside the ancient pipes underground), and this time it's further than we can reach to clear it with our rods. The system dog-legs, and that's probably where the roots have got snagged. We're getting too old for this game!

You have a pressure washer IIRC. Some makers do a high-pressure adapter for clearing pipes etc - a kind of DIY Dynarod.

e.g. https://www.stihl.fr/fr/ap/pack-de-nett ... ions-93578

The jets of water shift debris better than a brush and you avoid the risk of the rods becoming detached in the pipe complicating matters (unless you rope them - which is a faff in its own right).

Aha! We do have a pressure washer (if it still works!), so could try and adapt this somehow. Thinks it'll need more than 15 metres though. Mr Bayleaf can't get involved much anymore because of his back problem, so I'm trying to take up the baton, so to speak! Trying to ram hose up the canal, while squatting in the middle of the field above the Regard would have looked a right old sight for anyone in the vicinity!

You can get 30m drain cleaners from amazon that fit most makes of pressure cleaners.

Thanks Dave. It's reminded/prompted Mr Bayleaf that we have actually got a gadget (somewhere .....). from our farming days in Devon, that fits on the end of the pressure washer hose, with one jet of water aimed forward, and four aimed back, so that it does sort of self-propel itself along the canal.

Failing all this, anyone know who to call to clean water drains?!

I would have thought a plumber.

Friends had a drain pipe block and tried to rod from both ends eventually losing the head off the rods. The plumber fixed the problem, retrieved the lost head and installed a regard at the critical point where the drain did a right angle turn.

exile wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 9:47 am I would have thought a plumber.

Fine if you can find one, or one who is willing, or knows anything about the job. Sorry but I have a very bad record in this direction.

Nearly 30 years ago, not long after we bought our house here, I set fire to the forest, or at least an 80 foot oak and neighbours soon put it out, but had a lot of difficulty connecting a hose to the tap in the bathroom. Found a plumber in the next town who was a star and arrived the next day to fit an outside tap. Used him many times after that and, apart from his excellent timekeeping and work, always produced a bill with a Polynesian recipe on it and with a few foreign stamps attached from his collection (he had spent much of his life in the French Pacific service). Then, unexpectedly, he died. Since then we have had many but either they don't arrive when they say they will, don't arrive at all, or if they do arrive, do a lousy job.

More recently we had a similar problem to Bayleaf with the washing machine waste pipe backing up and flooding the veranda. I went to a large plumber, advertise locally and beyond, explained the problem but got only blank looks. Apart from 'you need a snake' they said they didn't have such a thing and told me to go to one of the other (let down) plumbers. They were shut for 2 weeks holiday so I went back home and persisted with a simple plunger on the shower drain, the last entry before the fosse. Eventually, with a loud gulping sound, it all drained away and was clear. Keep at it is my advice Bayleaf.

Plumbers seem to be pretty slim on the ground here too. An electrician does some plumbing as a side-line, as the two sometimes go hand in hand (replacing boilers and pool problems for instance). I'm not sure even he'd be up for this job - too menial judging by his daily rates ...!

Our spring canalisation does indeed have a dog leg half way between regards. We discovered it years ago when the spring supply stopped completely and we thought the offending item was a large, wild cherry, as that was in direct line. One day with a digger and driver showed us different. The dog-leg had a regard, but as the land had shifted over the years, it was a good metre and a half deep. It had a very healthy sloe bush growing above it, and the roots, like a tight sponge, had managed to get below the regard and formed a plug. Having cleared that, Mr Bayleaf put in a plastic corner pipe, and sealed it, so no roots could get in there. But some roots must have got in further up, where we haven't got round to cementing around the lid (usually nettle roots). We've hoiked out most of the roots - they form a really long spongy sausage in the pipe! But some must have broken off and lodged near the corner. That corner regard was covered up, as it's so deep and caused a hazard. We won't be digging that up again (won't fit a digger there anymore anyway).

It's on the to-do list to find the semi-propelled head for the pressure washer....... Just finishing finally doing up our end room before I can have fun furnishing it with other existing items. It's only taken 17 years!

Good tradesmen are in short supply everywhere.
When practicing my plumbing/heating business back in the uk I worked up to 12 hrs a day, never had to advertise and just couldn't keep up, same with carpenters, like gold dust.
Here in France in my opinion (for what its worth) things are much worse
getting a decent trades man even to give a devis is hard enough before having works done.