Basement Bathroom Plumbing

Hello all,

I am your average DIY here so please bear with me.

I am looking for advice and help with my plumbing project. I am putting in a full bathroom in my basement.

Here are some pics to take a look at. I am trying to keep this project to code, but have not consulted a pro yet for advice.

Let me know what you think. All drains are 2". and I have descriptions for all the pics.



Picture 1 (above) - Pretty self explanatory. This drain line is connected to the kitchen sink which comes down into the basement aprox 16 feet away (The pipe that is near my work bench table). The 45 degree pipe that is going into the framing is going to be connected to the vent being used by the laundry tub. The drain flows from top left to bottom right of the picture. This drain connects to the sewer probably about 14' away from the P trap that I made. The pipes are all 2" diameter.



Picture 2 (above)- This picture shows the shower stall drain, floor drain, and the toilet. All the pipes in this picture except the toilet are 2". The toilet is 4". The 2" pipe on the far left of the picture is the vent pipe (which has to be reconnected) You will also see the cleanout, and then a drain that goes of the left of the picture that attaches to the laundry sink drain. (Right now the laundry drain is not vented, I will be venting this sometime later in the project). The water flow is from left to right again in this picture.

Question - Should I have a vent pipe between the two drains on this line (the shower stall drain and the floor drain)?
Question - How many drains can I connect to a 1 1/2" Vent pipe? can I tie in all the drains into this vent line? I will have a total of 5-6 drains in the basement alone that will all tie into this which probably also connects to the sinks and shower upstairs so a total of 8 drains.



Picture 3 (above)- Also shows the drain pipe run of picture two, it is just at a different angle.



Picture 4 (above)- This picture shows the new toilet drain and the 2" drain for the shower stall, laundry tub and floor drain. I still have to tie in the sink drain to this line, and vent it in that wall in the picture.

Picture 5 (the link above)- This is the main waste stack that I tied the new toilet drain to. All the drains in this line are sloped appropriately and I don't think that there is problems at all with this but it is always good to have a pro look at this.

The main worries that I have is venting of all these pipes. On the bathtub wall side of the bathroom, I am going to be tying in 3 vents for the three drains (bathtub, Shower stall, and Laundry tub), and on the other side of the bathroom I am going to have a vent pipe for the bathroom sinks, but all these are going to be tied together to the original 1 1/2" vent pipe that vented the laundry Tub.


Please let me know if you see anything that I should look out for or anything at all really. All input would be great.

I think you need another vent between the sink and the shower. The size of the vent is determined by the number of fixture units...I don't know the values or the cutoff points.

congratulations James, you came to a good site, that is Good NEws #1.

also, you have posted all this before rebuilding on top of it, so that is Good NEws #2,

and you have siad you want it all to be up to code. Good News #3.


In order to bring this up to code, you will need to re-do parts of it. So, let that be Good NEws #4.



Sanitary Tees shown in pictures 2 and 3 at the left are properly oriented, as the Tee is used to bring a horizontal pipe into a vertical one. There are two SanTees that are well done. Also, in picture 5 you have a SanTee in a vertical pipe too.


The Wyes you have used seem to me to be the right part for the function.

So far so good.


After looking these pictures over once, I think that "that's about it," in terms of what is right. I'll be happy to come back and look this over again tomorrow, and again another day too.

In the meantime, I will say for now that I see Sanitary Tees used in the opposite direction, on their back, and tight radius-of-curvature bends used in drains... Both are Big No-No's. Except for toilet bends which can be tight bends. SanTee's used on their backs are tight radius of curvature bends too, so that explains why both are Not Good.

more people posting later will tell you more.

I'll look at your venting later too.


Have a good day.

david

I am a little confused about what you were saying on the sanitary tees. All of the tees used are draining in the direction of the water flow. I dont think that I have any that are opposite direction. Also, the tight bends that you see, these are the normal solvent weld p traps that were bought at hardware store. Are they a no no? What should I use?

Basically are you saying that I should be using Long Y sanitary Tees instead?

correct.

The direction of the Tees is good, but a Tee is not the right fitting to use, when combining flat-horizontal pipe. Even though it is sold in a store, it is not the right thing here. Same goes for the tight bends.

They really should print that on the fitting itself. Imagine the millions of man-hours wasted describing this and finding it out the hard way. Imagine the millions of bad drains that will clog.

Your wye goes in the right direction too. You have a good sense of direction.

David

it wasn't clear, when i used the word "opposite" in my first post. Maybe someone else will have the right one word answer. It basically goes like this: a SanTee is used to bring water flowing in the horizontal plane into a pipe that flows in the vertical plane. An arrow saying "up" printed on the San Tee would solve a huge number of problems. You cannot lay a San Tee flat, for a drain. That is what I called the "opposite direction"

James, you probably used logic and bought what looked good and efficient to you. Unfortunately, these fittings are not for drains carrying water from multiple sources.

Search on "DFU" and on "combo fitting" for some more DIY learning.

David

It's not clear to me how many and what fixtures are going to be on this line. It sounds like it may need to be 3" part of the way.

tell us where you are, it would help with code issues. here, I would have to tear it all out and individually vent each fixture. some areas are easier with their vent requirements.

Brent, I am in MN, Minneapolis to be exact. There are 4 fixtures (laundry tub, Shower drain, Bathroom sinks and floor drain) on one line. On the other line, it is the line for my kitchen sink (which is located upstairs) and my Bathtub Located in this basement project. Both lines connect somewhere that I cant see (because that connection is further into the concrete floor) and then to the main sewage line.

In picture two, if you go left to right (also the direction of water flow), you will see the laundry facilities (currently not to code, I have to move the laundry tub a max of 5 feet away. this is temporary), Then you will see that the line goes down into the ground. The first trap is for my Shower stall, the second is for the floor drain, and then there is a third that was cut off the picture, it is for my bathroom sink. The bathroom sink will be vented.

I redid all the drain lines now so that they have long turns like what geniescience mentioned earlier.

Does this help at all?

vents

If your vents pass inspection, then you either have a very lenient code or inspector. Our vents would have to be between the trap and the connection to the main line.

The line that has the 2 drains in it has a 2" vent on the left of the run. The first drain to the right of it is my shower drain and the second one from the left is the floor drain. The floor drain is only ever going to be used if there is flooding in the basement, or for similar problems. Does that matter at all?

drains

each trap should have its own vent, the two traps in the floor do not have vents. Whether a trap needs a vent or not, and all usually do, depends on the installation, not whether it will ever function or not.

The vent for the Shower is right next to it. See picture 2 above. The vertical 2" pipe that is covered with tape, that is the vent for the shower. The Laundry that I have hooked up to it has to be re worked. Right now it is a temporary for my girfriend to do laundry while I am tearing up the place.