On 04/12/2012 08:33, The Medway Handyman wrote:
On 04/12/2012 05:54, Hugh - in either England or Spain wrote:
On 04/12/2012 00:12, wrote:

Do modern WC systerns still need an external overflow pipe? I've been
wondering for years why they don't just overflow down into the soil
exit pipe and save boring extra holes through outside walls and
whatnot. Now I have a Geberit wall frame unit to install and can't
find any mention of overflow in the instructions, so I'm guessing
maybe it doesn't need one due to this. Can anyone clarify the
situation? I admit to being very out of date on this subject!

ISTR that there were regs about the visibility of overflows so problems
were not overlooked. It now seems that overflows that run down the pan
are accepted as being visible.
Neither of our WCs (one Topravit and one labelled Utopia) have external
oveflows.

There may well be regulations, but they are largely ignored. IME all new
cisterns have internal overflows and I've never seen one with any kind
of visible or other warning.

If they overflow, the customer usually describes it as "the toilet won't
stop flushing". It's often the water bill that alerts you to the problem.

Those things can be a bloody nightmare for rental properties in
particular... your typical tenant on a water meter won't give monkeys
about the fact that water starts running into the toilet bowl 24/7,
and/or won't put two and two together and come up with the simple truth
that they are wasting and having to pay for gallons of extra water per
day. Then months later, the massive water bill comes in, and they
expect the landlord to stump up the difference because it's down to
fault in the property, as they see it. (Not BTDTGTTS, as it happens!)

David