Topic: Summer from hell, need some plumbing help here!

[edwardmorris]

Hey all, hope you are all doing well. I've been lurking, never really left, but also hadn't had much to chat about lately. Still very happily riding the K2. The one thing I know I (re)built ground up has been running perfectly ever since. My home, not so much. Damn money pit! Within the past six years I've had the central heat go out followed by the air conditioning and very recently the water heater and the washer and dryer, all seemingly back to back. And oh!, had to repipe the house along with the water heater coz the old galvanized steel pipes were corroded beyond belief. Big stuff I had to get new installations done professionally, I recall starting a thread or two here around those times. But the washer and dryer seemed simple enough so replaced them myself, first time ever working with a gas line, wasn't too bad. Then last week, I see a giant puddle in the basement next to the A/C, and of course, it was a clogged condensate pipe. Took a bit of tricky maneuvering but managed to get it fixed. Now yesterday, the damned shower started backing up. Like seriously WTF is going on with this dump

The plumbing isn't great to begin with as can be seen in the pictures below. Never seen a shower trap like this, and all things cast iron refuse to budge. Wanted to try and clean out the trap, tried heat, penetrating oil, and a long pipe on a pipe wrench for leverage, nothing worked. Gave up on trying to open the cast iron trap, figured I'd remove the PVC stuff around it to get to it and clean it out. Ended up breaking the PVC #$%* with my bare hands? . Took a trip to Menards and found replacement pieces for everything and put it back together after pulling stuff from the trap I refuse to believe came off of a human body All that work, cleaned it all up made sure there are zero leaks, and STILL the damned shower is flooding like nuts. What can I try next before calling in a professional? I'm a little hesitant to touch the cast iron stuff seeing how quickly I managed to mangle the PVC $hit.

[C317414]

Register on this site.  Post the issue and photos.  There are a lot of professional plumbers in this forum, and they will provide good advice:

https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php#

[Don R]

 You can hold a rag on the tub overflow and use a plunger on the drain. Water in the tub helps. If you don't get results you can try a hand twist drain cable but you'll need to get into that line after the trap. Removing the cleanout plug might be a chore if it's been there forever. Big wrenches help.
 Personally, I'd cut that steel pipe with a sawzall and remove that big drum trap. You can put a plastic P trap or plastic drum trap directly under the shower and hook back to the steel with a no hub coupling or a fernco coupling. Leave a wye fitting after the trap with a female thread and a cleanout plug. 
 A drum trap feeds in the bottom and out the top with the top side outlet only slightly above the drain line. They help with an old system that's vented poorly.

[Don R]

 At least a few of those fittings are cast iron steam fittings, I can't tell if the fitting above the big trap goes up into a vent pipe or just turns back down. There is a barnacle growing on it. Whatever you do, you don't want to shock or shake it where the steel threaded pipe threads into cast iron or whatever the stack is.

[BenelliSEI]

Don…. He says he cleaned out the trap but it’s still backing up. The blockage is further down the line? It could be anywhere below the height of the shower trap, right out to the street. The shower is the lowest opening, so the back up always appears there first……..

[Stev-o]

I hate plumbing, you really only think of it when there is an issue.

Sorry I can't help, but I would follow Don R's advice, he is our "resident plumber"

[Don R]

 Yes. It's plugged further down the line. Unscrewing that cleanout plug after the trap might be easy or a chore. Since its painted I'm guessing it's in a basement. It is possible the entire building drain is plugged, or it might just be this pipe. If it was the main drain, other drain water would back up into the shower.
 I started out with Roto Rooter and my last jobs were piping a surgical suite in a hospital and geo-thermal in some schools.
  Any mechanically minded young person would do well to find their local UA union hall and apply for an apprenticeship in plumbing, pipefitting, welding or HVAC. This commercial announcement is now over.

[edwardmorris]

You can hold a rag on the tub overflow and use a plunger on the drain. Water in the tub helps.

Hoddiggity! This did the trick, at least for now the flow is back. Thanks Don!

If you don't get results you can try a hand twist drain cable but you'll need to get into that line after the trap.

I did the hand twist cable when I had the PVC stuff out but could only go past the first bend, it refused to go further. Most of the gunk was seated in the trap, all things vertically above it were relatively clean.

Personally, I'd cut that steel pipe with a sawzall and remove that big drum trap. You can put a plastic P trap or plastic drum trap directly under the shower and hook back to the steel with a no hub coupling or a fernco coupling. Leave a wye fitting after the trap with a female thread and a cleanout plug.

This is a great suggestion, and pretty clear. I might just do this once I feel confident that I won't hurt the old plumbing, especially the stuff inside the wall.

At least a few of those fittings are cast iron steam fittings, I can't tell if the fitting above the big trap goes up into a vent pipe or just turns back down.

It does go up out to the roof/vent line that's inaccessible unless I start tearing out the floor and wall. If I'm to do the above upgrade, I need to carefully work around that.

There is a barnacle growing on it. Whatever you do, you don't want to shock or shake it where the steel threaded pipe threads into cast iron or whatever the stack is.

Just the word barnacle has triggered my trypophobia (which apparently is more disgust than fear) pretty badly, been nauseated all day and now I want to burn that thing off!

[Don R]

 A vent there is a good thing except it makes the trap harder to remove. I think what I'm seeing is just a rust blister, those threaded cast iron fittings are really thick, the odds of a pinhole are small.
 
  Those traps do contain some pretty yucky stuff. I won't share any of those stories.
  Since it's working, I'd stop fixing it lol.

[edwardmorris]

........  Since it's working, I'd stop fixing it lol.

Amen to that! Thanks again for the help!

[HondaMan]

I feel SO much better after reading this thread...
Thanks, guys!
My house is only 60 years old. The house-to-street [sewer/drain] pipe is only 2 years old, now.
Other parts are going 'bad', gotta go work on some of them.
Don: do you have any advice toward repairing/replacing a 60-year-old Kohler toilet fill valve that has a slow-leak that keeps the toilet tank draining [slowly] into its overflow? It's an all-brass valve, wondering what sort of replacement device/vale might be best?

[Don R]

 I use the tall Mansfield 08 ballcock in the older tall tanks. I think it's 12", the shorter one is 10.5" if I remember right. They are plastic but hold up well. If you have high water pressure, I like the big Mansfield blue float.
 It's weird, but if the bowl re-fill tube ends below the water level it can cause a siphon to start that overcomes the float valve. That's usually seen on the old brass refill tubes though.
 I got to where I was fast enough that I could swap out a ballcock without mopping all of the water out. Just a small towel under it.
 Kohler usually has a half ball shaped flapper valve, there are silicone rubber ones that last longer than the black ones. Korky makes a nice one to fit Kohler if I remember right.  It's been a long time since I ran service but I think those parts are still valid.
 I avoid the Fluidmaster ballcocks, especially ones that have adjustable height, I saw one flood a house once while the owners were out of town. There was a lot of drywall on the floor.

[Don R]

 Yesterday I got a double water bill, I checked the meter and it was moving, looked in the crawl space, checked toilet tanks, and then found an underground ball valve on the lawn sprinklers that was leaking through. It didn't leak enough to make a wet spot above ground or even turn the grass greener than the other grass but over a few weeks it adds up. 

[HondaMan]

I use the tall Mansfield 08 ballcock in the older tall tanks. I think it's 12", the shorter one is 10.5" if I remember right. They are plastic but hold up well. If you have high water pressure, I like the big Mansfield blue float.
 It's weird, but if the bowl re-fill tube ends below the water level it can cause a siphon to start that overcomes the float valve. That's usually seen on the old brass refill tubes though.
 I got to where I was fast enough that I could swap out a ballcock without mopping all of the water out. Just a small towel under it.
 Kohler usually has a half ball shaped flapper valve, there are silicone rubber ones that last longer than the black ones. Korky makes a nice one to fit Kohler if I remember right.  It's been a long time since I ran service but I think those parts are still valid.
 I avoid the Fluidmaster ballcocks, especially ones that have adjustable height, I saw one flood a house once while the owners were out of town. There was a lot of drywall on the floor.

Thanks, Don! I'm going to take my measuring stick to it and see which one(s) will fit best. The Fluidmaster is all the local Ace Hardwares here carry, and I had poor results with their flapper valves twice in a row some years back - made me gun-shy of working on this ball valve(!).

[Don R]

 I finally got used to the braided hose type supply tubes too. I had a toilet that was on an offset collar to miss a floor joist, one of the bolts was between two plastic arms in the wet part of the flange. It was next to impossible to keep the toilet from moving enough to make the supply leak. I finally put a braided hose on it. Later I pulled it and fixed the flange right.

[HondaMan]

Well, Don, I'll say THIS for the record, after spending this ENTIRE DAY replacing my kitchen faucet, and in the process bumped the [metal] drain pipe and saw it explode into many pieces right in front of me, which took over 8 more hours just to find parts to replace the shattered metal ones:

compared to plumbing, rebuilding CB750s that are completely frozen with rust and crud is a day like walking thru the park....

[jgger]

An old friend of mine was a plumber, his philosophy was  " when you open the cabinet doors, just figure you will have to replace EVERYTHING  you see" . Keeping that in mind over the years, it has served me well. That way if there is something under there that survives its a win!

[HondaMan]

An old friend of mine was a plumber, his philosophy was  " when you open the cabinet doors, just figure you will have to replace EVERYTHING  you see" . Keeping that in mind over the years, it has served me well. That way if there is something under there that survives its a win!

Yep, that's just what happened in the end.
'Tis all brand-new (and plastic drain pipes now).