Reply With Quoteok update. Touched that pipe and it fell right off, leaving rusty threads stuck in both of the T pieces. Can't seem to bust that bottom tee off the lower pipe in addition to not being sure how to take care of the upper part.
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From bad to worse, more remodel woes
Ok, so we thought we were home free with the plumbing til we went to hook up the bath drain this am. This is what we found. This pipe at the end of the purple line is busted, with the treads busted off in the piece above it. The problem we face is the lack of room to spin and turn to get stuff off, so whats the easiet way to do this? Thanks for any help!!
ok update. Touched that pipe and it fell right off, leaving rusty threads stuck in both of the T pieces. Can't seem to bust that bottom tee off the lower pipe in addition to not being sure how to take care of the upper part.
Two large pipe wrenches should allow you the leverage to back the lower tee off enough to work on the broken pipe inside, and you can already get at the inside of the upper tee. You need to cut and pry the broken ends out of the tees. If you work carefully, you won't damage the tees' threads so much they won't seal with pipe dope. Now I have a question. What in the world is that bell shaped piece attached to the upper tee? Perhaps one of the pro plumber can ID it, but it's sure a strange looking thing to me.
You need to get in there with a sawsall and cut everything out that is galvanized leaving enough to attatch a banded coupling on to it and replace as much as you can with PVC. Go as far as you can go with the PVC.
sharp steel cutting sawzall blade
Thats a fun one
and Cass is !00% right
it looks like you could cut that pipe off above the floor
behind inside the acess panel
cut out that nasty old tee too.....
get yourself some fernco fittings and just rebuild
the whole thing with pvc and a trap
be sure to wear a hat cause you are gonna get
some FUNK spattering all over the place when you
cut out that Drum Trap
Also take out that GLASS panel or it will be covered in FUNK
lay some shets up there or yo u will probably
be spending more time cleaning up the mess
than the whole plumbing job took....
Last edited by master plumber mark; 07-03-2006 at 11:39 AM.
Thanks guys, just got back from HD with what we hope will fix this up. The threads inside those T's are completely shot, and we cant get the T busted off so we got a compression fitting for the bottom pipe, bought all new pvc tees and stuff and a new trap. Fortunately the pipe up through the floor is still behind an open wall so we are going to cut that and tap into that above the floor. I'm probably not explaining it right but it all makes sense when I see the pieces together.
Gary, That strange thing, are you talking about the trap?
Mark, thanks for the tip about the glass (actually plastic I think) and the gunk. Would not have thought of that and woulda had gunk everywhere! Fortunately its the basement and the floor is cement!
Will come back later to let you know if we succeeded or if we need more help. You guys are the best. I just might get to take a bath in my new tub tomorrow after all! (carefully of course, cuz we sure arent going to have time to get the tile on!)
Apparently that "thing" is a drum trap. It is my understanding they are no longer used. On rethinking the problem, I'm inclined to agree with Cass and Mark. Cut the mess out, replace with PCV and use a P trap instead of that drum "thingy".
You've probably discovered this already, but you can disassemble some of the ceiling gridwork without too much trouble and give yourself some working room.
Ohh, a P trap woulda been a good idea! We thought we had to have the drum trap, so we bought a new one. It's almost put back together already.
We ended up tying into the vent pipe that you can see in my thread from the other day when we were trying to center the valve body. Thought we'd escaped that pipe but as it turns out we had to replace it anyway. If we'd known we would have gone ahead and made the adjustments to the valve. Oh well, at least we discovered this before the walls went up!
Is a drum trap legal any more?
I did a quick Google search on drum traps and while it seems there still are some limited uses for them, but the recommendations are to change to a P trap. They generally are considered a nightmare because they become almost impossible to open and clean. You can not run a snake through them. They should never be used for a tub/shower.
Well that really sucks cuz we're finished and we used the drum trap. Don't understand why it would be hard to clean, it just unscrews at the bottom. Can't imagine them being illegal if they sell them at HD. Can understand the snake problem but if you just open it and clean it that should work? Oh well, we certainly arent going to change it today!!
Here's the final results.
drum
If you had put a p-trap on that bath tub, you would have been able to clean that drain without taking that drum trap apart.
pvc isn't expensive. Before you close that area up, I sure would just put a p-trap in there.
I'm confused...... you dont really have to take it apart, you just unscrew the bottom and clean it out. I'm not arguing your point because I do understand what you are saying, but I dont see it as such a big deal to clean.
My husband says he thinks this will actually be easier and more effective. I cant say one way or another, but if he's happy with it I'm probably not going to twist his arm to take it out unless there is something non functional about it.
drum
OK, this is the way that I look at it. suppose the drain stops working and you need to clean the drain. Go ahead and unscrew that plug on the trap. You'll probably get a lot of dirty water and you will try to catch it with a pail.
With proper equipment I would just clean it from the overflow side of the tub's waste and overflow. Probably no more that 10 min. and no mess.
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