I have a 15 yr old ranch house with basement with a finished drywall ceiling and walls. The first floor sits on prefab 2x4 trusses and the plumbing, HVAC, electric runs thru in the truss area. I’m in TN and the county I live in did not have a building code or do any inspections until 2006. Yeah, I know this is crazy and it’s really burned me on various things. I had a minor plumbing leak (drips) in the master bath shower supply and when I tore out a portion of the basement ceiling to see what was going on I was shocked at what I saw when I started looking around. This led me to call the county to ask about building codes- none for this house, so what I saw now made more sense.
Bear with me for the description- it shouldn’t be hard to visualize. The house basically runs north to south for purposes of this mental image. On the first floor it has a master bath on the south east end and another full bath at about the middle of the house and also on the east side. There’s a third full bath in the basement with washer and dryer- it’s just north of the master bath and is on the west side of the house (so it's "between" the two first floor baths in the N to S direction). The house has two septic tanks- the basement bath goes to one and the first floor (basically) goes to the other. I know this because when it was being built I managed to see how the pipes were laid out before they poured the basement floor.
So, with the hole in the basement ceiling I started to snoop around and the entire house is wet vented thru the roof via the main 3” line that runs south to north- the septic tanks are north of the house. What’s even worse is that the basement bath is vented back into the main drain line for the first floor and connects in midway between the two first floor baths! It has a 3” PVC pipe that runs vertical up from the basement floor and then east to tie into the main drain line with a wye fitting (lying flat) that’s flipped to how it would normally be used if it was intended to direct flow.
Obviously this is all screwed up and is probably a record for doing things wrong. I can’t make it “right” but I would like to get rid of that wye which I know caused two drain clogs many yrs ago before we started being a bit more careful with flushes from the master bath. What I was thinking was to pull out that wye , replace it with a straight section, and instead vent the basement bath back upstream (south) of the toilet in the master bath.
Please resist the urge to tell me to rip out the entire house’s DWV system! I know it’s not right but we’ve really had no issues with clogs in ~10 yrs and the drains work fine.
The subdivision has another house just like it by the same builders and I’m sure it’s done the same!
The next time someone complains about codes they won’t feel so bad when they read this.
edit: the main drain line is 3" and not 4" as originally stated
Bear with me for the description- it shouldn’t be hard to visualize. The house basically runs north to south for purposes of this mental image. On the first floor it has a master bath on the south east end and another full bath at about the middle of the house and also on the east side. There’s a third full bath in the basement with washer and dryer- it’s just north of the master bath and is on the west side of the house (so it's "between" the two first floor baths in the N to S direction). The house has two septic tanks- the basement bath goes to one and the first floor (basically) goes to the other. I know this because when it was being built I managed to see how the pipes were laid out before they poured the basement floor.
So, with the hole in the basement ceiling I started to snoop around and the entire house is wet vented thru the roof via the main 3” line that runs south to north- the septic tanks are north of the house. What’s even worse is that the basement bath is vented back into the main drain line for the first floor and connects in midway between the two first floor baths! It has a 3” PVC pipe that runs vertical up from the basement floor and then east to tie into the main drain line with a wye fitting (lying flat) that’s flipped to how it would normally be used if it was intended to direct flow.
Obviously this is all screwed up and is probably a record for doing things wrong. I can’t make it “right” but I would like to get rid of that wye which I know caused two drain clogs many yrs ago before we started being a bit more careful with flushes from the master bath. What I was thinking was to pull out that wye , replace it with a straight section, and instead vent the basement bath back upstream (south) of the toilet in the master bath.
Please resist the urge to tell me to rip out the entire house’s DWV system! I know it’s not right but we’ve really had no issues with clogs in ~10 yrs and the drains work fine.
The subdivision has another house just like it by the same builders and I’m sure it’s done the same!
The next time someone complains about codes they won’t feel so bad when they read this.
edit: the main drain line is 3" and not 4" as originally stated
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