Improper plumbing & trying to remodel bathroom/laundry

[frodo]

Thanks guys,

Frodo, that last sketch is so much simpler. I love it! So, my sketch of running toilet to the sink's line is ok then? Do the fittings look about right? I would just have to turn the tee to be the correct angle to meet with the line from the toilet.

So, I'd still have the 3x4 closet bend, 3" pvc pipe, 3" sanitary tee, 3" wye, cleanout with cap, and the other stuff indicated in my sketch?

Picked up my brother's cold or whatever crud he has so I'm feeling like hell today.

yes, everything would be the same, you would just be moveing the main line over.

that, is my next question.

look at this , it represents your house, oriented to N/S E/W



need to know,,which way the existing sewer is routed
in order to figure out how to tie it in to the new.

and, where da kitchen ?

where is the septic tank ?

 

[zannej]

Oops. I kept meaning to indicate the directions. On the last sketch, what you have as South should be West. The front of my house is to the north and the back is to the south. This bathroom area is on the southeast side of the house. I just keep putting it upside down because I visualize the room as I walk toward it from the North.

Here is a not-to-scale representation of the house that I put together in Sims 3. (ignore the weird boxes-- they were needed to add light to the spaces) Red spots indicate plumbing vents. The bathroom/laundry area is on the southeast corner.

Here is a floorplan I modified and marked some stuff. I would have to find more photos and maybe dig around under the house to figure out where everything ties together. I'll have some general ideas. There are some old pipes lying around that were cut off so they added to the confusion when i was trying to map out the stuff on the west side of the house. (For this sketch I erased the walls for the old bathroom/laundry and marked where some stuff will be put).

The green space is just part of the yard-- there is a decrepid brick pathway and some steps going up to the doors. There used to be a tree there.

This is a diagram I did of the current plumbing for the laundry/bathroom area. It shows the pipes traveling from east to west.

I have absolutely no clue how/where the kitchen sink ties in and I'm not sure where the other bathrooms tie in to the main line either. I know that the vent for the kitchen sink comes out from under the house on the east side and has a cleanout at the bottom. It then routes up and around the window where it terminates under the soffit.

 

[frodo]

something like that

 

[zannej]

something like that

Frodo, I think I modified the image and re-uploaded it after you looked at it.

I think it runs in a straight line from the vent area out to the septic tank underneath two of the bedrooms. The bathrooms and kitchen sink must have their runs go south to meet with the line somewhere before it goes out.

And even stranger, the vent for the bathrooms comes out on the west side past the bedroom window near the southern end. It is not within 10 feet of the fixtures as near as I can tell.

Edit to add a modified version based on some photos I found on my phone.

The orange is the lavs and they come in high and merge with some sort of y shaped thing with some black fittings (I think) and then go down to a pipe with a cleanout. The toilets are go down to the same pipe via separate wyes (no vents). Still couldn't make out where the kitchen sink tied in. Toilet lines are straighter than in the drawing-- my proportions were way off.

Ok, some photos (they are blurry) This one starts with the line for toilet 1 in the background on the left. Behind it to the left you can barely make out the drain for tub1. Then the Y sort of in the middle in the background is toilet 2 merging with that line. Toilet 1 has a cleanout. In the forefront is a blurry shot of the drain for lav1 with a cleanout to the right. There is another cleanout for the toilet lines lower down.

Cleanout for lav1 line going toward some sort of octopus of pipes

Further south, you see on the right side sort of up is the drain line for lav2-- it seems to have a fernco fitting on it.

Here you can see the lav2 drain with some sort of black 90 and it merges with the octopus with a Y. I'm guessing the stuff behind is from the tubs? I'm really not sure what is going on there. I know one of the larger pipes is not hooked up and is just lying under there.

 

[zannej]

I got a little bored. This is my guess as to what is under there. The octopus says Hi.

Edit: Ignore the directions. I got them wrong. Top should be east, right should be south, etc.

 

[zannej]

When I was showing the photos of the pipes to my mother, I realized that there are a bunch of sanitees on their backs. /facepalm

From left to right (background first)
* P-trap for my tub. Pipe is strapped up and run seems to angle up (but I'd have to check it with a level). Couldn't see where it went, but I think it merges with the other shower/tub.
* Toilet drain going to a tee on it's back with a cleanout at what should be the top of the tee.
* Some bends to angle the pipe toward toilet 2.
* Closet bend that comes from inside the wall so I think it is a vent. It goes to the top of a tee on it's back.
* Toilet 2 dropping to sanitee on it's back (the top of which is what I think is a vent-- but I have no idea where the vent goes since there is no cutout in the roof for it). Looks like it then runs to a wye, but I can't see for sure.

In the forefront (left to right)
* Lav 1 drain going to elbow and connecting to a wye with a cleanout. Runs along and has a fernco fitting then hits another wye.
* Lav 2 comes down and has what looks like an ABS elbow. It goes to the aforementioned wye but meets it after a fernco fitting.
*Below that wye appears to be a sanitee on it's back that has a couple foot run terminating in a cleanout.
* Cold water supply line for lav 2 looks like it is sitting on top of one of the sewer pipes on the bottom. It looks like it passes under the fork of a wye.
* The wye on it's back either connects to the line for the tubs or kitchen sink or both.
* After that wye it sort of gets buried in the dirt and I can't see where it goes, but it must connect to the main sewer pipe from the guest bathroom and then travel west to the septic tank.
*Leftmost view in the last picture there shows a couple of defunct pipes that are no longer connected.

TL : DR? It's a clusterf****

Revised sketch

 

[frodo]

, i would cut it all out, redo everything all at one time

 

[zannej]

, i would cut it all out, redo everything all at one time

I agree. It looks like a gut job. I might have to make a separate thread about the best layout for it all since it goes beyond the bathroom/laundry room. I might have to pull the wall panels in my mothers' bathroom when I'm redoing her floor to gain access to add vents. Because I don't know WTF is going on with the vents, but it looks like there aren't any functioning vents. No wonder stuff clogs up so much.
Mom's lavatory is under a window in an exterior wall. That's going to be fun to fix. The wall I would need to open up has some heavy solid wood shelves I'll have to take down-- but we were planning to paint that wall anyway.

Too bad the "easiest" solution isn't really an option.

 

[frodo]

do it the way the girls around here do it.

date a plumber till he is done, then date a sheet rocker, framer etc etc

 

[zannej]

do it the way the girls around here do it.

date a plumber till he is done, then date a sheet rocker, framer etc etc

ROTFL!
Sadly, I think I know people who do that. Only plumbers around here are married. No sheetrockers, framers, etc.

I do have a friend who will do gruntwork for food though... I can buy him all the Popeyes naked chicken strips he wants. I also regularly drive his girlfriend and kids to another town because he's afraid to drive too far after that near-fatal accident. Can't say I blame him.
http://www.houserepairtalk.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/

 

[nealtw]

Frodo: would you want to upgrade the water lines while you were under there?

 

[frodo]

AHHHHH......sounds like you need to check out the local water hole and find a handy man.

drag him home and chain him to the porch.

wait,,is that a movie ? chained to the bed with a sledge hammerd foot ?



I would, looks like it is all old galvinised pipe.

she could buy the pex, fittings, tool, everything to do it for around $ 350.00-4 hun

 

[frodo]

neal, it all boils down to money,

$1000.00 +- would buy material for everything under the house and the water


I would start by buying the pipe
then fittings
then the pex

couple hundred here couple hundred there. then remove and replace everything under the house.

new line from well to the house

if we can get a GOOD sketch, it would serve as a material list, with a 95% accuracy

water can be repiped without opening walls.

 

[nealtw]

Yeah, it just looks like they could be in the way of the pvc and if all that is coming out it would be the time to do it.

 

[slownsteady]

If you buy from the bigbox store, you could overstock and then return what you didn't use. Don't forget to have a little extra for waste.

 

[zannej]

I climbed further under there to get a better look. I have good news and bad news.

Good news is that the galvanized pipe is not actually hooked up and it appears all of the water supply lines are PVC/CPVC (pvc for cold, cpvc for hot). I also found out when I think this part of the house was built-- someone wrote 1-22-47 FAT on one of the joists. Also, there is at least one wye fitting instead of a tee.

Now, the bad news:
1. The drain for my tub appears to angle up, a floor joist is illegally notched for it, there doesn't appear to be an overflow hookup, and there is no vent. Edit: It's possible there is an above-floor drain hooked to the overflow.

2. That line travels south to meet up with the drain from the other shower with a tee. That other shower does not have a vent or overflow and it looks like there is a chunk taken out of part of the pipe or something. The angle looks a bit too steep too me. The one good thing is that it does seem to connect to a wye after some bends.

3. The ground is undermined around some of the supports for the house and I think it goes deeper than the footers (but I'm not sure) so I will need to shore that up or fill it in. And only some of the supports are concrete. A great number of them appear to be large chunks of tree trunk.
Here is just one of the undermined supports
https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=7180ae8ed75cb63bd8e897370d5ba421&oe=5764F9A0

4. I still can't see just where the east to west line that goes out to the septic tank is met by the north to south line. I think it is underground.

5. I think there are some electrical wires just draped over stuff under there and I don't know if they are live, but they should be in conduit.

 

[zannej]

Latest diagram from what I could tell. I *think* those are 1/8 bends. I could be wrong. It looks like there is a short one and a long one connecting to a very short straight piece connecting the tub drains to a wye. The dark gray line on the left is the joist that was cut.

The wye for the lavatories looks like this

On a side note, I was told that other than the septic tank stuff, inspectors never bother with this area and the one who came out for the septic tank told me that I would not need permits to remodel out here. That said, I still want to do the job well enough that it would pass inspection if it were inspected.

 

[frodo]

,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[frodo]

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[frodo]

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