Main Drain Connection Failure/Mess (cast iron and clay)

[Bryan in Wyo.]

Hello all,

I have a mess and quite the project on my hands here. I am a handy guy but this is outside my comfort zone. I think my comfort zone is gonna expand after this project because i have no option to hire this out...

I am hoping to get some advice and guidance during this research so that I do not make matters worse.
any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

So.. It all started because of this




That was the toilet flange. It has been broke for a long time and leaking. So I decided to re-do some flooring and replace the flange. When reinforcing the floor joists, I found this:



That is the elbow coming up and out of the main drain. It is cracked out on one side and clay. The whole main is still clay. There is a stack of cast iron Tee's that feed into this.



There are a couple different drains that feed into this. Off to the left is the toilet drain that started this wonderful discovery.
To the right of the last photo is the main drain connection further down the line, shown here:



As far as I know at the moment this line down to the main drain is ok... It seems that over time the elbow that holds up the IRON has shifted and broke under the weight. I am a little confused as to what is even holding it all up...I am assuming the cast iron t's weigh a lot. Apparently these clay pipes could hold a lot of weight,,,, for 75 years. Anyway, The top "T" reduces down to a vent. This vent is also cast iron and i believe it goes up and out the roof... I am guessing there is a lot of weight on this shifted and cracked out elbow. I have no idea how much. The weight is my biggest concern... as i do not know if modern sewage drain techniques support this type of weight. In all honesty, I do not know much about modern drain designs.. Like I said, I would love to hire this out I just cannot afford it at the moment. Furthermore, there are about 8 other connections like this one under this old place. Better now than ever to learn. Another thing I am trying to keep in mine is the inevitable replacing of the main. Whatever I do now will have to tie in well with future main drain fixes/replacement. A plus is that all of the main connection and piping is relatively shallow and showing in some cases.

Well there is my problem, here is what i have come up with for a solution, thus far:

option 1: Determine if modern "DWV" plumbing techniques can support the cast iron monster. If so, Tie up the iron "T's" to a floor joist. Replace the elbow connection on the main drain side of things. Complete the connections??? (whatever this entails), and loosen the tied up "t's."

This seems like the easiest way to do it...But i am seeing a lot of PVC stuff being used so i am doubtful that it will support all the iron weight. But i am not sure on this either.

Option 2:

abandon the cast iron....this will be the hard part because i will have to work top down as i understand these are built from the bottom up....so i would have to pull the 12+ft of vent from the top of the roof, lol, and disassemble from the top "T" down. and replace from the next best section of main back up.

Option 2 seems like the most thorough and complete repair from a longevity stand point. Seems like the most amount of work also....What are your thoughts guys? I am open to anything at the moment...

I really appreciate you reading this and any and all help...I am hoping that I will be able to assist someone on this page at some point in return. I am not asking for handouts here.. with any assistance I receive - I will pay it forward. There is some stuff I know, lol, just not this old main drain stuff.

Anyway, I appreciate you and all your help,,

Bryan from Wy.

 

[Houptee]

How long a run is the clay pipe if you totally replaced all of it and are you on septic or city sewer?
How many bathrooms in the house or is that the only one?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[hj]

The clay pipe will run from that connection at least all the way to the city connection at the property line and probably all the way to the connection with the city sewer, although you probably only have to be concerned with the portion to the property line.

 

[Bryan in Wyo.]

hello all,

There is about 300 ft total of clay main. there are about 9 other iron monsters like this in the system,,,it is on city sewer....

This is actually underneath a motel that my wife and i just bought from my mother in law...it has been in her family for years. We were aware of the the poor condition of some stuff like this and knew we would just have to tackle it as the problems came up....

there are 2 runs of clay main they come together like this - 150ft each way.....
-
-
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- - - - - - - ---
-
- here is out to city connection in alley

i will eventually have to redo each run up to the cast iron tees just cant do it all right now... this specific drain is to the living quarters bathroom...it has been down for about 6 months...thought it would be nice to get a bathroom in the house going again. This old building would break me if i had to hire stuff out....things are tight enough so i just do the best i can to fix the problems i come across lol....this place can be a pain in the ass sometimes for sure.....

 

[Mliu]

Is the motel paid off? How much business revenue is it generating? Is it in an area that is economically growing?

You don't need to tell us the answers to these questions. But, as the new owner of this new business, you should evaluate how to proceed. From the pictures and your description, this motel appears to be both old and rather run-down. If the motel is in a stable or growing market and it's making money, then you should consider taking out a loan against the equity and hire some contractors to fix infrastructure issues like this and renovate the property while you're at it. If done smart and properly, your business will increase and you may even be able to raise your rates.

Sometimes, you have to invest money to make money.

 

[Reach4]

This is acutually underneath a motel

If you do end up with a big replacement, it may be worthwhile to route the new sewer line outside and circle around the building. The big problem with clay is often tree roots penetrating the joints. You may have no trees within range of messing up the clay pipe.

However I think that your idea of supporting the cast iron to the joists makes sense. Look up "riser clamp" as something that might help with some of that.

 

[Bryan in Wyo.]

I don't mind telling...It is a valid point to look at it from the business perspective. I have thought along these lines as well and I just don't know right now. All I know is I have to get it fixed so that the living quarters bathroom is back in service... right now we use a room that is right next to the living quarters. We put a door in the wall and kind of extended the living quarters into the adjacent room. we have 2 boys and the living quarters as is was not big enough. We are out here in a rather rural farm community in Wyoming...the motels around here pick up 90 percent of there business in the tourist season. Folks stop here during the summer on there way to Yellowstone. We have only owned it for the past three months. Hunting season around here was good, I do not really know how much revenue the tourist season brings in due to the lack of accounting for the past 15 years since my mother in law bought it....basically me, my wife, and kids have been living in the housing quarters for the past five years with my wife running the place. I work at a job outside of this place and my wife stays here cleans the rooms and tends to our children. We decided to purchase it to help my wife's mother and are hoping that it will be a benefit to our future. Ya know, one of those chances you only get a few times in your life? Anyway there are no solid financials since my mother in-law bought it 15 years ago. And yes, a lot of the structure is degraded as my mother in-law worked a job and did the best she could for this place at the same time since she purchased it. She never had a man that could tend to the maintenance side of things. The rooms are nice with a "woman's touch" in every room... I will not know for a couple of years what I can expect from this place as far as revenue. I do know that historically, it pays for itself and some...so at least that is something, for now! Right now it provides us a home and my kids can stay with my wife at home and she has something to do. I owe the entirety of the mortgage to the bank...maybe there is a couple hundred equity in this place at the moment lol.... I just don't think that a large scale project can be financed at the moment. especially since the roof needs replaced as well, lol. O boy, ya this place is a little of a mess. I am gonna have to do it all on my own for the time being...roof included this spring. Anyway so the area,,, is flooded with motels, 6 in this town of 5000. Cody WY. is the major tourist trap 45 min. away...we get a lot of overflow when that town fills up and a lot of people stay here because it is significantly lower priced. Cody can get up to 400 dollars a room per night... The most here is 100 per night, and we are usually the lower priced around here. I don't think there is much more we could charge unless we really spruce up the place or tear it down and rebuild. However, the insurance says it will cost about 750,000 to rebuild this place. I don't see a place in this area generating enough to support the mortgage on a place like that... especially without any previous hard financials. So i owe 156,000 on this place as it is and i am hoping to just get by this winter as there is no business in the winter. I am hoping for an excellent summer with all the Kanye West hype, lol. the fall hunting season was a success, there was a few thousand left over since September 20 when we bought it. Future Plans, my wife and i have not decided...as we do not want to live here forever. However there is a lot here for what I paid for it. Just gonna keep rebuilding and remodeling and hope for the best...at least i wont be bored and paying rent and utilities I guess, lol. Sorry I could not be more specific there are just a lot of unknowns at the moment...were just seeing how it goes and seeing what this place can do and looking toward where we need to be...One thing is we have a lot of "single" rooms and i think that I need to take those and make the adjoining singles into an optional suite as they would generate more revenue and are in a higher demand....anyway right now just gotta maintain and rebuild till we know more.

 

[Terry]

For starters if you only need to get the toilet going, you can drill and pry out the lead from the hub, use a donut and tap in some new PVC into the joint, replacing the lead there.

These come in 4" and 3"

Here is one done on the horizontal with ABS.