Plumbing issue achieved. What gremlin cut my pipe?

I need plumbing help.

Short story- how do I replace this cast iron?

Unnecessary long story - living room floor started buckling and making squish squash noises. After going through the rigamarole of watching the meter to check against slab leaks (nope), I started making holes in walls to chase down what it is that's injecting gallons of water under the laminate.Apparently this house has been worked enough times that the kitchen sink was 10 feet away from it's original drain, so it was a LOT of holes in walls. But, I think I found the culprit. It's this ancient artifact.









What a nice clean cut.




Q1: how do I go about removing it? I'm guessing it's on the vent and hopefully the kitchen drain can be unthreaded? It looks flanged on the slab. Does that part just lift out?

Q2: what do I replace it with? PVC? It looks like the roof and kitchen runs are galvanized. Can I find a connector to hook in?

Q3: let me ask the lazy question. Can I patch it? Is it patchable?



Well, my weekend chore list just got bigger.

 

I'm not a plumber. But I can maybe provide a tiny bit of info. I believe the pipe that goes up through the roof is called the "stack" or "drain stack". As far as the easy way, I don't believe there's any reliable way to patch that up. But you may be ble to use a Fernco fitting like the one I link below. You'll still have to do some cutting. I think there may be a special tool that wraps a cutting chain around the pipe to accomplish that task. If the remaining cast iron pipe is in decent shape the Fernco might be your best bet.
https://www.fernco.com/products/flexible-couplings/qwik-tees-ells

Edit to add tool...
https://www.google.com/search?q=too...msung-nf-rev1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

 

Bummer, my crustacean amigo!

JB weld can be used on cast iron for what it's worth. Patch job until you find a more permanent fix? As far as replacement options go, I'm outta my depth as an accountant.

 

I don't think flex seal and JB water weld will suffice. I'd do PVC and a Fernco coupling of sorts.

 

Yes that all can be adapted to ABS/PVC. I can't tell the pipe sizes in the pic, so you will need to get to the best plumbing supply place for parts and fittings. Fernco makes all sizes......

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=fernco+couplings+for+sewer+pipe&iax=images&ia=images

 

Not a plumber but I have some plumbing experience. Mostly water supply pipe, under pressure - sewer not so much.

But at any rate:
It takes a long, long time for cast iron to rust completely through like that, unless someone habitually uses some sort of strong acid as part of their kitchen routine. (i.e. regularly pouring undiluted vinegar down the drain at the end of a dish-washing run.)

Chances are fair that much of the rest of that cast iron is in bad shape, internally. Replacing it with PVC won't cost much in materials. PVC is very reliable, the only major downside in some situations is that can be way noisier than cast iron if it is passing down through walls in living spaces, bedrooms, etc. (The whooshing sound of water/waste rushing through it at high speed.)

The smart way to check the condition of the inside of the cast iron before going to the trouble of replacing all of it would be to use a relatively cheap (<$60) 15 foot flex-neck borescope camera (like the

$70 Dual-Lens Endoscope Camera with Light, DEPSTECH 1080P HD Borescope with 5"" IPS Screen, 16.5FT Flexible Sewer Camera, IP67 Waterproof Plumbing Snake Camera, Cool Gadgets for Men, Women, Black

DEPSTECH sold on Amazon). Hole looks big enough to possibly insert the borescope directly, or, you might be able to use a clean-out port to gain access.

For a temporary fix, plugging it with JBWeld (or something similar that specifically listed to be applied to & bond with wet surfaces) should do fine for quite some time -- at least weeks, maybe months, possibly even years -- because sewer pipes are generally not under pressure, at all. (Except in cases where the pipe is totally full with water, like filling a kitchen sink with water & then pulling the plug, draining 5+ gallons at once. And even then the pressure might be only 1 PSI or so, depending on how high above the joint in question the sink is located. ~0.43 PSI per foot of vertical elevation.)

 

I feel your pain man.
My grandparents house has that black iron and galvanized drain pipe.
NPT to PVC and no less than 6 trips to the hardware store......

That upper nut on the clean out has me scared......Looks like it's going to "stuck".
Hopefully the old timer used soft set pipe dope on the threads

 

So the idea is to cut at the red, take a careful look at the clean out wye, and hopefully keep it, it if not, cut the blue?

Do I have that right?

 

It's been a sorry three months. I would take the L and just call it in, but I'm still in arbitration with insurance over a damaged roof. I really, really don't want to make a second claim on the house, after arguing over that one plus two cars. Especially an interior claim, as that one plays by different rules than storm damage.

I can't really tell what they used to glue the two y pipes together, or what was used to fasten it to the slab. The roof vent almost looks like it's set in cement.

 

in many area's, the metal shielded transition couplings are required, like this.
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Fernco-2-i...ded-Specialty-Coupling-PVC-Fitting/1000075337

the rubber one's work similarly, the metal shield just adds a little more rigidity, which can be good or bad, depending on the situation.

cutting out the bad section is really the easier part of this issue-- those parts can be easily converted to pvc without much consequence.

but there's two area's that will be difficult.

1. the roof vent-- remember, that's a vertical pipe, that's usually not supported by anything other than the pipe it connects to. that's a ton of weight. ideally, you'll want to replace the entire metal vent with a pvc pipe, but that might not be possible. the real risk here is going to be supporting the metal vent while working on the rest of it. you'll also need to get up on the roof afterwards, and check and/or re-apply the vent-to-roof seal to prevent water ingress off the roof.

2. the transition back into the cast iron. the absolute best way is going to be chipping out the lead and oakum in the seam just below your blue line. then you'll need to install a pvc pipe that fits within the diameter of the seam(adapt back to the size needed with reducers/expanders), and use something like black swan Soil-O, along with some oakum rope. the oakum gets packed in tightly around the joint(i used a flat head screwdriver), and then the soil-o mixes up like concrete and gets packed over the top to hold the pipe in place

 

that's a lead and oakum joint. extremely old school, and extremely standard for that kind of soil pipe. #2 in my post addresses how to put it back without the pesky lead


i should note-- i'm an ex-electrician that specialized in remodels, and spent far too much time bugging on-site plumbers on how they addressed issues like this, as well has remodeled my own 1972-original bathroom that ran into many of the same issues--running pvc, and having an entirely cast soil pipe system. i'm by no means an expert, but my pvc-to-cast joint is still leak-free 7 years later!

 

Thank God I live in a raised foundation home. Shit starts to flood it's not inside my home. I truly hope you get a good recommendation here, and don't have to pay a plumber. With that said, someone has to post this:

 

@soundman98 thanks for the heads-up on the heavy ass vent pipe. I don't know if I would have thought of that, but I decided to climb up into my attic with some spare Tacoma parts...



Pipe secured.


And the initial cut to see what I'm working with..



It has a little bit of buildup, but the pipe looks damn solid. Aside from the hole.


I swear it looks like someone took a grinder to it.







So, now can I jb weld it???

 

The hole did look strange before you got it opened up. Now it looks REALLY strange since the rest of the pipe seems pretty good. See if you can find one of those Fernco fittings that will work in your situation.

 

"One"


The hardest part is finding a Y that was a 2 x 1.5 x 1.25.

 

not pretty, but it verks!

and it's not a project until the home improvement store cashier laughs at your repeated return trips!

 

The guys at Ace definitely gave me the "what the hell happened there?" When I showed them the cast iron.

Definitely ugly and not my best, but hopefully by the end of weekend it will be buried under new sheetrock and it'll be a problem for the next homeowner.

 

It does look pretty uniform. Any signs of a previous patch that fell off? Anything lying around in the general area?

Would patching it really be that heinous of an idea? There's plenty of metal there, it certainly doesn't look brittle or anything

 

I don't see anything on the pipe. If there was a patch, the flooding probably sent it on a trip.

 

At least it was a leaking kitchen drain pipe, not a leaking toilet drain pipe.