zannej
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I hope that this is the right place for this since it mostly involves plumbing.
My family purchased this house in the late 1980s but we lived overseas for 9 years while we had some "friends" become tenants. The general deal was that they would pay the cost of the insurance premium (about $87 per month) and keep vagrants out of the house. They were supposed to take care of our property, keep the house and yard maintained, and take care of our livestock in exchange for living there while they built their own house on some property nearby. If they needed money to fix something, they were supposed to ask us or our lawyer. We ended up getting royally screwed over. We'd had ducks, chickens, geese, goats, guinea hens, cats, horses, cows, etc. Only one horse and one cow were left when we came back. I will not get in to the litany of complaints, but basically they robbed us blind and did well over $65k worth of damage to the place (that is not counting the loss from theft). Our lawyer screwed us over. The cops knew about all sorts of illegal things these criminals did and didn't attempt to let us know or try to stop them. So we came back to find our lumber stolen, circuit boxes missing, electrical outlets missing, plumbing totally messed up, wiring messed up, floors ruined, walls damaged, mice everywhere, roaches everywhere, septic tank lid broken (they tried to hide this with a flimsy piece of plastic and I discovered it when I nearly fell through the hole), and trash/vehicles dumped all over our yard. It was not easy to get them to move out and after they did and we changed the locks, they broke in to steal stuff again.
The wiring is a tale for another thread, but the plumbing... Every single sink has an S-trap. The plumbing vents had been completely torn out, some of the fixtures weren't hooked up at all, and it the wrong fittings were used for things...
Anyway, the house has 3 bathrooms. Two are ensuites and one is a tiny guest bathroom with the toilet jammed in to a 23" wide alcove. It's meant to be my brother's bathroom but he is wider than the alcove. He has to walk sideways through the 24" doorway. My ensuite is currently under repair (no toilet installed right now) so everyone has to traipse through my mother's room to use her ugly ensuite. All of the bathrooms need some renovation and I'm debating whether or not to make separate threads for each of them or if I should keep it all here.
First I'm going to focus on the guest bathroom and cramped laundry room.
This is an isometric sketch of the area with the laundry room and bathroom. It is pretty much oriented with North at the top. North of this area is the kitchen. To the west is my brother's small bedroom.
After reviewing pictures, here is my unscientific, not to scale, rough sketch of what I can figure out from looking at pictures of the plumbing under the house.
I *think* the toilet has a 3" drain (but it could be 4"-- I haven't measured as everytime I get near the mosquitoes decide its time for lunch). It goes in to a sanitary tee that hooks to some sort of reducer. I suspect it is a fernco fitting missing the metal straps. It reduces quite a bit-- I think that its 2" or maybe 1.5". I'm not good at judging size. The tee drops down to an elbow that connects to the main soil pipe that is sitting on the ground. There is no cleanout.
https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net...8_10152151213875168_4451410713330883152_n.jpg
Sorry about the trash. Trash cans got knocked over and stuff got blown under the house.
I don't know for sure, but I think that the reduction in size violates code. I believe that the main vent pipe is smaller than it should be-- IIRC, it should remain at about 3" until it gets to a certain height-- perhaps in to the attic-- and then it can reduce. Am I right or wrong on this?
This 4-picture per post thing is killing me. LOL. I'm going to have to split it up into multiple posts to get the images in.
My family purchased this house in the late 1980s but we lived overseas for 9 years while we had some "friends" become tenants. The general deal was that they would pay the cost of the insurance premium (about $87 per month) and keep vagrants out of the house. They were supposed to take care of our property, keep the house and yard maintained, and take care of our livestock in exchange for living there while they built their own house on some property nearby. If they needed money to fix something, they were supposed to ask us or our lawyer. We ended up getting royally screwed over. We'd had ducks, chickens, geese, goats, guinea hens, cats, horses, cows, etc. Only one horse and one cow were left when we came back. I will not get in to the litany of complaints, but basically they robbed us blind and did well over $65k worth of damage to the place (that is not counting the loss from theft). Our lawyer screwed us over. The cops knew about all sorts of illegal things these criminals did and didn't attempt to let us know or try to stop them. So we came back to find our lumber stolen, circuit boxes missing, electrical outlets missing, plumbing totally messed up, wiring messed up, floors ruined, walls damaged, mice everywhere, roaches everywhere, septic tank lid broken (they tried to hide this with a flimsy piece of plastic and I discovered it when I nearly fell through the hole), and trash/vehicles dumped all over our yard. It was not easy to get them to move out and after they did and we changed the locks, they broke in to steal stuff again.
The wiring is a tale for another thread, but the plumbing... Every single sink has an S-trap. The plumbing vents had been completely torn out, some of the fixtures weren't hooked up at all, and it the wrong fittings were used for things...
Anyway, the house has 3 bathrooms. Two are ensuites and one is a tiny guest bathroom with the toilet jammed in to a 23" wide alcove. It's meant to be my brother's bathroom but he is wider than the alcove. He has to walk sideways through the 24" doorway. My ensuite is currently under repair (no toilet installed right now) so everyone has to traipse through my mother's room to use her ugly ensuite. All of the bathrooms need some renovation and I'm debating whether or not to make separate threads for each of them or if I should keep it all here.
First I'm going to focus on the guest bathroom and cramped laundry room.
This is an isometric sketch of the area with the laundry room and bathroom. It is pretty much oriented with North at the top. North of this area is the kitchen. To the west is my brother's small bedroom.

After reviewing pictures, here is my unscientific, not to scale, rough sketch of what I can figure out from looking at pictures of the plumbing under the house.

I *think* the toilet has a 3" drain (but it could be 4"-- I haven't measured as everytime I get near the mosquitoes decide its time for lunch). It goes in to a sanitary tee that hooks to some sort of reducer. I suspect it is a fernco fitting missing the metal straps. It reduces quite a bit-- I think that its 2" or maybe 1.5". I'm not good at judging size. The tee drops down to an elbow that connects to the main soil pipe that is sitting on the ground. There is no cleanout.


https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net...8_10152151213875168_4451410713330883152_n.jpg
Sorry about the trash. Trash cans got knocked over and stuff got blown under the house.
I don't know for sure, but I think that the reduction in size violates code. I believe that the main vent pipe is smaller than it should be-- IIRC, it should remain at about 3" until it gets to a certain height-- perhaps in to the attic-- and then it can reduce. Am I right or wrong on this?
This 4-picture per post thing is killing me. LOL. I'm going to have to split it up into multiple posts to get the images in.
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