Cleanout plug original 60's bath sink p trap

[homestuff]

hi all, thanks for future tips. live alone, disabled, mostly in whchair, doing best I can to maintain house on limited $$$ so I can stay here.
bathroom sink, old 1-pc 1 1/2" pipe ptrap from wall, cleanout plug at bottom. back when there was no in/out/left/right flexibility (called craftsmanship?). then 1 1/4" sink tailpiece inserted. I was poking at something at bottom, cleanout plug was corroded and I poked a hole thru it. thought it would be simple to replace, but 4 places, no luck.
might be going from a $5 plug to major project. now I hear a licensed plumber may have to somehow remove 1-pc ptrap (unscrew entire thing from cast fitting in wall, which may break), open wall, resolder new sections of pipe, new matched wall section, add shut offs (have none), new sink with the works, and new modern ptrap. holy....'crap'(?). from $5.
cleanout plug is hex, about 1 7/16" across flats for wrench, with male threads about 1 5/16" o.d.

 

[Dj2]

Sorry about your difficulties. Unfortunately plumbing work under sinks is a difficult job even for healthy plumbers.
If you re-do everything in PVC you'll save money and future troubles. We don't use clean out plugs like in years past, because the new traps are very easy to remove, clean and re-install.
To save money, a competent handymen can do this job for less, and just as good as an expensive plumber.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Terry]

How about a picture 800 pixels or less so we can see where it attaches to the wall.
If it's a threaded pipe there, then a slip joint nut with slip joint washer may work for that.

That would mean spinning off the trap and using a new one. You might need to cut the tail piece to make the trap spin able.

 

[homestuff]

might have to forget things, don't know a anything about doing pictures.
no slip joint/nut at wall where trap comes out, just big diameter thick escutcheon freely spins around it. so back then they measured exactly, threaded it on to end up vertical and centered under sink?

probably no chance of getting a replacement plug....unless some old shop finds a few buried in a cardboard box in the dusty back room? easy quickie fix.

 

[Terry]

To save money, a competent handymen can do this job for less, and just as good as an expensive plumber.

The pictures here are from the same Four Star hotel room in Denver that I stayed in. The same room in fact. Some handyman was not so handy.

Handyman plumbing.

Same hotel room, even worse repair.
The p-trap is too low here.

Reversed cartridge, a felt marker for the win?

 

[homestuff]

How about a picture 800 pixels or less so we can see where it attaches to the wall.
If it's a threaded pipe there, then a slip joint nut with slip joint washer may work for that.

That would mean spinning off the trap and using a new one. You might need to cut the tail piece to make the trap spin able.

 

[homestuff]

amazing if they spun on, to end up exactly centered under sink drain. not sure here, some have said it might be soldered on, damn. must be plenty of these that were done like mine, but I cant find a diagram anywhere, incredible. Im amazed you don't know exactly what Im talking about (even without picture). it always means bad news running into a "...I've never heard of that before" situation.
I'll try to figure out how to put a picture on here. does it have to be a smartphone, or can I use flip phone?

 

[homestuff]

well that didn't come out right, was trying to do the quote in my reply, but it came out in 2 separate boxes.

 

[Terry]

Yes we have seen solid p-traps threaded into the wall. We can give advice for that. Replace it.
If you can't replace it, perhaps a picture would suggest other ways of doing it.
For someone to replace a threaded trap like yours, I would suggest a plumber. A handyman isn't going to have much of a clue as to how that was done in the first place. Or have the muscle to do it. There are a few things related to plumbing that do require the ability to fit in tight places and have the hand strength to make it happen.

 

[Sylvan]

The accordion on the P trap is a perfect incubator for all types of bacteria and is differently NOT self scouring

Terry if master plumbers are concerned about "what if I cannot physically work anymore" how are they going to supplement their income

This is why I thought about the expert witness gig and never did I expect it to take off as well as it did

Think about this NYC has over 57,000 lawyers and only 1,250 Master plumbers ( not counting journeymen) Just Masters

There are several thousand bill butt crack handymen and building superintendents dabbling in a licensed profession so there are lots of mistakes being made

The easiest suits to win are scalding occurring in showers or E coli and other water borne diseases caused by inadequate dish washing temperatures

A few years ago I testified in Supreme Court the water to the shower was too hot being 130 degree F and this caused the scalding

A few months later same court same court I testified the water was 140 DEG F way to cold and this is why people became sick in the restaurant

The judge asked for a 10 minute recess and had me escorted with a court officer to her chambers and she asked me if I knew what perjury is

I said Yes your honor and then she said I had better explain myself as she remembered my last testimony

I explained for showers the max temperature shall not exceed 120 deg F

The minimum temperature for a commercial dishwater / pot scrubber "shall be" 160 Deg F min and 180 def F for sterilization in lieu of chemicals to kill bacteria

She said I should explain which code I am using and I said both are in the NYC plumbing code

Just going to court and giving a 10 minute quote from the "code" I was compensated over $2,800 each time I went

I had a case where someone used a plastic "accordion" on a basin waste and a child had an asthma attack and I stated the waste line was causing unhealthy living conditions and documented it by the "code" and this also was an easy case to win and in a commercial kitchen they case will never go to court

Having the right credentials and knowledge of the plumbing / ASME / NFPA /ADA.codes really helps when your cross examined

As long as people use idiots to do the work as they are cheap there is a fortune to be made

America is going law suit crazy sexual harassment , trips, falls, scalding , food poisoning ,water too hot ,water too cold , waste exposure, sick building syndrome and all the other stuff now coming to light this is a wide open market

The real money is when someone dies because of faulty gas piping or appliance installations or in the case I am on now two toddlers died from a steam radiator leak

Ever since the McDonald case it opened up a whole new market for personal injury litigation

 

[homestuff]

yea, that's it, one-piece,and a bigger flange, about 2" 'deep' up against the right end, then the flange against the wall. the flange is free to spin around, but cant move in/out. might be able to find a 'similar' unit and just use the plug. an odd waste to not be able to get just the plug, but seems that way. quick easy fix replacing plug.

**edit - whoa, bunch of legal tech stuff, I'll let this go for now, over complicate things, Im sure others have bigger issues.

 

[Reach4]

cleanout plug is hex, about 1 7/16" across flats for wrench, with male threads about 1 5/16" o.d.

A "1 inch" NPT plumbing plug has threads that are very close to 1-5/16 OD. The threads would be 11.5 threads per inch, or in other words, 0.087 inch thread pitch.

Take your plug to a hardware store or plumbing place and compare it to a 1 inch plug. The thread pitch could be different, or it could be close enough. I would opt for plastic, but brass would be good too. I am not a plumber, and I have no experience with these traps. Click Inbox, above.

NPS threads are similar to NPT, except they are not tapered. I think you can often put a 1 inch NPT into a 1 inch NPS hole.

Another possibility would be to try to screw a piece of 1-1/4 hardwood dowel rod in there. Perhaps taper the tip with sandpaper or a file to get it started. Yes, hokey-looking, but if it holds, it's better than leaking.

A cork or stopper may be useful. https://hvchemical.com/rubber-stopper-size-chart/
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EAhI8bT5...izes%2C+dimentions%2C+coordinated+bottles.jpg

There appears to be more than one stopper numbering system. One of the links I posted would say you want #16, and the other seems to say #6. So do more research if you go that route.

 

[homestuff]

try to keep it simple. found a small shop nearby, been there over 50 yrs. said bring it in so they can look at it, might find some tucked away somewhere.
or might have some type of rubber expansion type plug (?) that might work/seal the threads so it wont leak (?). go there tomorrow, might get lucky.

 

[homestuff]

two shops, both in business over 50 years, no luck.

my buddy says he can probably do it, has any needed tools. says as long as it wouldn't be soldered in place (don't see how that could be) it should twist off, as you say, after making spin room. then pvc adapter and out from there.
but he wonders about the odd big diameter one piece flange (not shown in the picture in #9) which spins around behind the wider flared section of the 1 1/2" pipe. does it just slip off the wall fitting after unscrewing the pipe? (some real craftsmanship, and time, getting pipe twisted on, no leak, ending up at centerline under sink, and up against flange/finished wall).

f

 

[Tuttles Revenge]

There's a chance that's a lead wiped joint. I would very carefully remove the flange / cover / escutcheon and see what is behind it. IF it is lead, you definitely don't want to be twisting it.

 

[homestuff]

dam.....so no way to know, it really could be soldered on? what does a plumber do, remove piece of wall and cut pipe? I cant be first one.
flange is one piece, have to do hacksaw/Dremel/chisel deal to get it off.

 

[Reach4]

dam.....so no way to know, it really could be soldered on? what does a plumber do, remove piece of wall and cut pipe? I cant be first one.
flange is one piece, have to do hacksaw/Dremel/chisel deal to get it off.

How about a photo showing a side view (wall on the left or right).

 

[Mad Plumber]

You have a funky and junky thing gong on there. How old is the home? If it's lead then I say No Buenos. Lead is hard to work with. It's soft. No threads and can break. Ever tried soldereing in a wall with9uot torching the house? It can be tracky.

 

[homestuff]

don't know how to do photo. is it by smart phone only, or can flip phone do it? see terry's picture in #9, looks like that, except for also having the bigger diameter flange behind it.
feel like Im on another planet, must be lots of others like mine, house built around 1960.

sure started as a simple thing.....finding a replacement cleanout plug.

 

[Tuttles Revenge]

Any photo can work. Flip phone might be a bit grainy but it can't hurt to try and upload one, as long as you can email it to your computer, you can upload it to the site. While I'm not familiar with plumbing typical of boston, lead was not being used for small drain work in my area in the 60's only for cast iron hubs..

Its more likely that your trap is threaded and because its brass, it will come loose of the threaded nipple or fitting its threaded to. It will take some degree of force to get it to work and may need some repair further down the line, but that's sorta how old things go. And as stated prior, they don't fix themselves.