Basin, Bath & Shower Waste Guide

Despite its rather dismissive name, a waste is an essential part of some of your most important bathroom fittings.

In essence, a waste is a conduit pipe that allows water to run away from whatever it is fitted to. Conversely, it is also the mechanism by which you block up these units to retain water, such as filling your bath by putting in a plug.

If only t’were that simple…

Playing the Slots

Your next level of difficulty is whether you require a slotted or unslotted waste. To the uninitiated, these can seem a bit of a weird question. Fortunately, it’s very easily explicated:

Unslotted waste – These are wastes designed for units without an overflow.

Slotted waste – Yep, you guessed it: slotted wastes are for units with an overflow.

All BathEmpire products will state what type of waste is required, if it is.

So that’s it!

Oh, no, actually it isn’t…

My Cup Overfloweth…

Before we move on to some other definitions of wastes, I should probably quickly explain what an overflow is. An overflow is a utility built into some baths and basins and usually situated beneath the taps.

It is essentially an extra drain, so that if water threatens to flow over (see?) the excess is drained away before it can make a swamp of your bathroom floor.

Waste Designs

Finally, we get to the exciting stuff – design.

There are a number of different types of wastes, and the below sketches out some of the most popular.

*

Plug & Chain – this shouldn’t be too taxing, as I dare say you’ve used one today. Your simple plug that you wedge into the drain to stop water escaping. Next.

Push Button– slightly more elegant, you might say, is the push button waste. This is spring loaded so you can push it into a locked position and push it again to make it proud of the sink, letting the water exit.

Pop-Up– not just a children’s book, but another type of waste. In this setup, a lever is used to ‘pop up’ the plug to allow water to escape. The reverse of this act will seal the basin or bath to hold water.

Bottle – not of wine or slang for courage but a special type of waste. These are two pipes ran into each other at right angles, connected by a ‘bottle’ pipe which seals water in to create a trap.

Showers – these are far more simple than the above, as you in all likelihood wouldn’t want to seal up the drain while you’re in the shower.

They are a pipe with a special ‘trap’ section for stopping you losing your rings down the plug and for catching ‘organic material’ (ugh) that could cause blockages. Special mention does go to specially engineered ‘fast flow’ pipes, which have a greater bore to allow for the heavier water flow power showers provide.

*

I do hope this hasn’t been a complete waste of your time. Haha! I slay myself. But ok, I’ll pull the plug and let you get your head around the whole concept with the handy infographic provided below…

Follow BathEmpire UK’s board Top Bathroom Infographics on Pinterest.