Plumbing inspection Failed!! Please Help!!

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ReelNauti

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Hey Guys...I came across this forum when I was searching for Back to back toilet drain installs. My inspector told me that my drains are not vented properly and I used the wrong cross wye to connect my toilets. I included some pics...Please if anyone can let me know what I would have to do to bring it to code. House in Long Island and I'm expecting a baby any day now and need to get this solved so I can continue with the project. Thanks!

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Tom Sawyer

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The double sanitary tee can't be used in the horizontal position, that fitting needs to be a combo or wye and 1/8 th bends. Both vents have two sections that are horizontal below the flood level rim of the lav and are prone to plugging up therefore all vents that are not at least 6" above the flood level rim of the highest fixture (the lav) must rise vertically off your horizontal branch so..... Cut it out and start over. Just a dig though. Hiring a plumber most likely would have saved you time, money and aggravation. Getting those vents right is going to take some doing. Neither one is going to work with the horizontal where you have it run. Oh yea, and why is that horizontal so crooked? No self respecting professional would even consider letting that go. Not that it effects anything or is a reason to fail the inspection, it just links like crap. Just my rules I guess. If it ain't perfect, someone other than me did it.
 
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ReelNauti

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Hey Terry, Thanks for the quick reply. Its a new second story addition, underneath all of this is a untouched baby room. I managed to get the drain down to the basement in between the walls. I wondering if I have to start over or if I can just cut out the cross ty and replace it with the combo wye.
 

ReelNauti

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The double sanitary tee can't be used in the horizontal position, that fitting needs to be a combo or wye and 1/8 th bends. Both vents have two sections that are horizontal below the flood level rim of the lav and are prone to plugging up therefore all vents that are not at least 6" above the flood level rim of the highest fixture (the lav) must rise vertically off your horizontal branch so..... Cut it out and start over. Just a dig though. Hiring a plumber most likely would have saved you time, money and aggravation. Getting those vents right is going to take some doing. Neither one is going to work with the horizontal where you have it run. Oh yea, and why is that horizontal so crooked? No self respecting professional would even consider letting that go. Not that it effects anything or is a reason to fail the inspection, it just links like crap. Just my rules I guess. If it ain't perfect, someone other than me did it.

Hey Tom...your right about the sanitary tee being wrong. Thanks for your input. as for everything else you mentioned about saving time and money.... I'm on my own time, and I've spent about $500 in materials so far as apposed to hiring a "Professional" who quoted me thousands and who would probably send illegals to do the work anyways like some "professionals" do. As far as the pipe being crooked....I don't think it looks like crap...I bet after your jobs are complete the homeowners looks through their clear tile floors and rave about how straight the drain pipes are. Oh and BTW I thought this was a Informational DIY forum....I'm sure there is a website where all the "professionals" get together to brag about how straight their pipes are. My Pipes are crooked a little, Its how she likes it
 
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Terry

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Tom is upset because someone took his raft and went down river with it.

It's a little tough to see what can be done in some ways. You have a 3" Pipe going through a floor joist. You have to leave at least 2" on the top and the bottom of the floor joist if it's load bearing.

Sometimes you're better off not trying to be so compact. You can aim for the toilet on the other side of the wall with a wye fitting and vent as you go under the wall.
Then you can wye off for the tub under the wall and use it's vent for the toilet, wet venting it. Or wye off before the toilet vent and vent as you normally would. Just start your layout farther back.
 
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ReelNauti

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Thanks for the input... I'm limited in space as you can see. If i end up putting the toilet in a different location, it will throw everything else off. the 15" I need on both sides the other toilet next to a stand up shower etc.... I've come up with this combinationwye.jpg...should be the same as a combo wye with the 1/8 th bend??
 

Tom Sawyer

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Hey Tom...your right about the sanitary tee being wrong. Thanks for your input. as for everything else you mentioned about saving time and money.... I'm on my own time, and I've spent about $500 in materials so far as apposed to hiring a "Professional" who quoted me thousands and who would probably send illegals to do the work anyways like some "professionals" do. As far as the pipe being crooked....I don't think it looks like crap...I bet after your jobs are complete the homeowners looks through their clear tile floors and rave about how straight the drain pipes are. Oh and BTW I thought this was a Informational DIY forum....I'm sure there is a website where all the "professionals" get together to brag about how straight their pipes are. My Pipes are crooked a little, Its how she likes it

1st off, no professional plumber would send illegals to do the work nor would they send anyone that is unlicensed as it would mean the loss of their own plumbing license. 2nd, though changing the San tee to a wye and 1/8 bends fixes that problem, you still have two vents that won't pass and unless you move the entire lateral, w
They never will. 3rd off nope, you are correct, the homeowner will never see the crooked mess nor will they care which is endemic of the problem with many of the trades these days.
 

hj

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quote; as apposed to hiring a "Professional" who quoted me thousands and who would probably send illegals to do the work anyways like some "professionals" do.

That is a "rationalization" to justify a DIY mentality, but is NOT based on any facts. Your Y-1/8 bend WILL solve the problem but you will also have a toilet that will be about 4", or more, away from the back wall. (This is a situation where you might ask the inspector if he would approve the use of a "back to back fixture fitting" in a horizontal run, since it is a lot shorter between the two branches.) Your vent to the right of the toilet has absolutely NO function, and the one to the left, for the tub and shower, is also in the wrong location and has a limited function. Your sink connection IS correct, or will be when you connect the pipes back together. My suggestion would be to tear it out and start over.
 
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Jadnashua

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To be a vent that works, it must come off of the trap arm at or before it starts to go down at the main drain line, not somewhere further down the drain line.
 

Tom Sawyer

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He could slide the wye downstream and come up with elbows which would keep the center flange distances correct. Just a bit of knowledge that a licensed plumber would have. There really is no need to use the 1/8 bends off the double wye at all. But I agree that everything except the lav vertical needs to be torn out and done over again.
 

Tom Sawyer

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To be a vent that works, it must come off of the trap arm at or before it starts to go down at the main drain line, not somewhere further down the drain line.

Up or downstream is ok provided it rises vertically. The trap to vent distances vary with pipe size and state and local code.
 

ReelNauti

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Just finished a redesign... I added the combo wye with 1/8 th bends and resdesign the tub and shower drains to a new 2 inch drain. Re vented to 2 inch for the toilets and capped off the wye. Any opinons on this design? Better? Worse??
IMG_20130713_182919.jpgIMG_20130713_182933.jpgIMG_20130713_183001.jpg
 

Tom Sawyer

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The vents are still flat and won't pass. You really need to tear everytHing horizontal out and reposition it under the wall. If you call for an inspection at this point you are just going to really piss the inspector off. You are missing important concepts of proper venting. At this point, like it or not you really need to have a professional come in. All that you have done, with the exception of the lav and lav vent is pretty much useless and its costing you time and money. Believe me when I tell you that since you are in NY, both of the bathrooms could have been wet vents with a single 1-1/2" vent but you have such a mess there now and a lack of basic DWV knowledge that trying to explain it in print would waste your time. Oh yes, and if the inspector sees those notches you cut in the floor joists he's going to call in the building inspector and the building inspector is going to read you the riot act and possibly make you call in an engineer to evaluate the damage done to the structure. So hating to rub it in but if all that comes to pass, how much money do you suppose you will have saved? Believe me, this is serious stuff. If a licensed plumber or any licensed contractor had done that to structural members the lawyers and insurance companies would be having a field day.
 
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WJcandee

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If you're on Long Island, and you decide to consult a real professional, Maccarone Plumbing in Glen Cove has been around since I was a kid, has grown tremendously since then, and now has like 85 plumbers (including apprentices) that do work all over the Island and a lot in my neighborhood of Manhattan. They're coming Tuesday to replace some seats and stems on some ancient shower faucets in our house. They have a good reputation locally; they fixed my friend's natural-gas-powered standby generator reasonably after he had paid someone else a lot of money to fail to fix it. I don't know what they would charge, but they sure wouldn't send you illegals to do the work.

They also have a decent-looking web site. www.maccaroneplumbing.com Not trying to get business for them, but it sounds like the people that you consulted previously didn't gain your respect.
 

ReelNauti

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Tom... I've put all this together without gluing anything yet....by you saying that the vents are laying flat you mean that those 3x 1/2 Y's after the toilet drain have to be turned so that the vent pipe faces upward and put a street 45 to go into the wall?? I know its easy for everyone critisize and just say it cant work its all wrong...but having two bathrooms added above a finished space downstairs and having to put all these drains down to the basement is not a easy task. This is the only area that I have to work with.
 

Tom Sawyer

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Vents below the flood level rim of the highest fixture served By the branch must rise vertical until they are 6" above the fixture so yes, the horizontal bit off the wye is wrong, but the way the main is run there is not enough room for you to be able to roll 1/8 bends. As for the criticism remember it was you that asked the questions. Don't get all defensive when you don't like the answers. Plumbing at the level you are attempting is not an easy task. There is a reason it takes us 4 years, 600 classroom hours and 8000 OJT hours to get a license. If you don't get it right the inspector will just fail it again and if you ignore him and don't bother with an inspection, what you have will done will instantly cause problems and.... If you don't do something about the structural damage you did up there the floor and your DWV piping will eventually sag and not drain properly. But what do I know, I've only been at this for 40 years. I think HJ's had his license since Lincoln was president.

One more tip. Nail plates and fire caulking are required to pass inspection also.

BTW, I know I'm a buzz kill, I was an inspector for many years and know what flys and what fails.
 
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hj

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Th reason I did NOT suggest a double Y originally was because I saw that you were going through a joist and using a Y would require that you destroy the joist, which is what you have done.
 

Terry

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having two bathrooms added above a finished space downstairs and having to put all these drains down to the basement is not a easy task. This is the only area that I have to work with.

And that is why we normally don't do our plumbing in a location like yours.
Normally, it would have been below the floor structure in places and the ceiling would have been boxed out for it.
We can't cut out the flooring system to put our plumbing in.

The framers have framing axes and nail guns. It's not even a fair fight.


At this point, would say, replace the floor joists now, or at least sister new ones alongside all the way out.
I would locate the main 3" run below the flooring joists knowing you are going to box that in.

A vent rises above the pipe at the point of take off. Many of your vents could have taken off under the wall above. That would have kept them vertical.

We can't tell where the wall is below all of that. Knowing the complete layout down to foundation helps us.
We always need to consider structure. Then we fit our work around and through, "only" if it stays structural.
 

ReelNauti

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What if I was to get rid of the Flat vent that is downstream of the toilet... I tried to turn that 3x3x2 wye but if I do that it passes the floor joists . would I be able to run a vent off of the top of that wye where I have it capped off?? Is the one vent for the shower good enough for both tub and shower so that flat vent that comes off the 2 IN double wye can be removed?? Under all of this is a bedroom, pretty much in the center. I would've ran the pipes below the floor and boxed off for it but it lands directly in the center of the room....I dropped the 3 IN drain down through the wall that seperates that room and a hallway. I have no other options but to try to make this work...
 
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