Bathroom Venting Questions

My situation is as follows:

I have opened up the basement bathroom for non-plumbing reasons and I see some work that looks suspect.

The picture shows the pipes coming downstairs from the upstairs bathroom, which is located directly above.

As you can see, the pipe on the right comes from the tub drain and the one on the left is a copper vent line.

There is a badly mangled rubber piece hooking the ABS up to the copper - it appears as though this piece will come loose on its own if left in place.

My knowledge level is not high but it looks to me like the way it is set up, water will get into the vent line every time the upstairs tub is emptied. I suppose this isn't the end of the world but I would like to make this as close to correct as I can.

This ends up draining down into a horizontal drain line which will also need some work (it seems to be running up instead of sloping down) but I will work on one thing at a time here.

Let me know if any more information is required for you to give a guess as to what I should do.

Scott

sedin26 said:

... it looks to me like the way it is set up, water will get into the vent line every time the upstairs tub is emptied ...

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Yes, that appears possible, but is it presently working okay?

S trap, and a few other things that aren't done right. That is what you have.

On the left are the things that look badly done, visibly, to anyone.

On the right is an S trap (search on that term) which is not good at all. A trap is designed to hold some water to make a seal against sewer gases so that they don't come up into your hose. An S trap can "accidentally" break its seal just by having water run through it. In your case, the distance that water drops is big, so it risks breaking its seal by siphoning itself out when water runs through it.

The visibly bad stuff on the left that you have already identified still needs to be redone too,

David

drain

To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "What is done properly, let me count the ways". And the answer is..................Nothing.
1. You have an "S" trap.
2. The "vent tee" is upside down below the overflow level of the fixture.
3. The rubber boot is illegal.
4. a horizontal vent below the overflow level.

It should all be redone properly, or you will have a lifetime of bad drainage.

leejosepho said:

Yes, that appears possible, but is it presently working okay?

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It is currently working ok but, since the wall is open and will be closed up again, I thought I'd avail myself of the opportunity to fix it up properly.

So far, the responses have basically confirmed what I thought - things are not correct.

If I had to give it my best shot with no other information, I would replace the S-trap with a P-trap, make it so the Tee is at least pointing the right way, and replace the rubber fitting with one of those banded couplings.

Does this sound reasonable or is there something else I should do that would be better in this case? This is not a rush job for me so I'm willing to take the time to do it right.

Thanks for the responses so far.

sedin26 said:

It is currently working ok but, since the wall is open and will be closed up again, I thought I'd avail myself of the opportunity to fix it up properly.

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That sounds rational to me, and at least you are not having to deal with something that is actually disfunctional.

You have heard the critics and Patrick has made some suggestions ...

Keep us posted, eh?!

leejosepho said:

That sounds rational to me, and at least you are not having to deal with something that is actually disfunctional.

You have heard the critics and Patrick has made some suggestions ...

Keep us posted, eh?!

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I'll do that. Thanks for the responses...

It may be a few weeks before I get to this but I'll post a pic when I'm done.