bathroom rough in help

oh'mike

What is that pipe sticking up?


I hope that is not your new shower drain---If so--it is missing the P-trap

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kimbhoot

It is very poorly made. Even for someone like me who never did any plumbing thought it was POORLY done. after joining, he pushed that inside hard and put a stake so he can be close to the wall (toilet drain is 13.5" from framing). He moved the drain and he cut the old pile and used a chisel inside to remove the old joint and says it's common practice among plumbers!! is that true?

TheEplumber

The pipes you show are drainage pipes- no water in them except when being used- which they are not- you were gone for the day- no usage in the house. Then you have a separate water line leak or ground water.

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kimbhoot

it's the toilet drain. the shower drain has a p-trap

kimbhoot

not completely true. I was gone but I had wife n kids at home used bathroom and shower upstairs. the main stack is to the right of this joint (about 3'). his logic was, water won't flow back in this upward direction. I would like to watch this for another day and if the water level stays the same, I plan to fill this back up.

thoughts?

TheEplumber

Well, in theory he is correct as it's upstream.
Dig under the suspected leak and place a shallow pan. Go upstream and introduce some water into the pipe. See if any drips into the pan. Repeat this until you find the leak or decide its ground water.

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kimbhoot

the confusing part is, looks like it's not coming from the joint. it's coming from the left portion and it's under the concrete floor. He used a sledgehammer to break the concrete floor(after he cut it with a saw). the floor is 4" and his saw only cut 2", the rest had to be broken. I was thinking of cleaning up the remaining water and come back tomorrow morning to see if there's still water (try not to use the bathroom at night but I'm pretty positive there will be)

shot a short video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuT6Qff4akU&edit=vd

Please let me know your input on how to proceed.

profcolli

My plumber did the same kind of install, and when he removed the old shower p-trap attached directly to the main drain the fernco coupling metal strap snapped open and either that or when he was shovelling under the drain caused a small hole in a water supply line running directly underneath the main drain (nobody knew there were water lines underneath, he wasn't sure which caused it).

He said when water first appeared in the hole that it is probably just ground water, gravity will take care of it - and went off for his lunch break - as you can see from the first picture, gravity didn't do much good, as it filled up with even more water (this was an hour later after he came back from lunch)

Lost half a day while the city (to their credit they responded in 30 minutes to an emergency flood call) tried to find the main shutoff outside the house - picture 2, took over an hour because it was actually buried under earth in the neighbour's yard, plus a lot of trial and error and head scratching from what to do because there were four water lines into the building - net result, ended up with gradually increasing water level in the excavation space (had to shop-vac it out completely, luckily it couldn't go above the level of the main drain which was open).

You might want to wait and see if it gets more water in the hole. The plumber had to fix the leak with a compression fitting.

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kimbhoot

I don't we hit any water line. there's just a little bit of water at any given time. I also think it's ground water but what's puzzles me is, I made another small hole less than 2' from this one(to prove his theory that it's ground water) and I see no water there!! no idea how ground water behaves.
It'll be hard to clear the gravel and mud around the pipe. I'm thinking of just putting the gravel back and pour concrete.
btw, what should be the height of the shower drain relative to the unfinished concrete floor? He's building the shower and saying around the drain, the first layer of mortar will be less than 1/2" thick.

idlewatcher

So what was the end result? Figure out what the cause was?

oh'mike

Could you explain your comment?

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djlandkpl

I thought the joint looked bad too. The pipe going into the wye looks like it's crooked and not pushed all the way in. Looking at it some more, the 22 1/2 connection looks off too.

kimbhoot

I watched it for a few days and was sure that it's ground water as the water level will never rise. so I poured concrete back. let's hope I don't see any water there in the future.

idlewatcher

Pretty brave of you in that case Since concrete is somewhat porous, wouldn't that create an issue down the road? Hopefully it works out though! I'm sure you're glad its over lol

dudleydoright

Next time instead of misaligning connections to make your desired loctaion, pvc pipe is bendable with the use of heat. 3 and 4 inch takes a heating blanket but 1 1/2 inch and 2 inch is easily accomplished with a heat gun. Don't know what the code says about this but is done on a regular basis with pvc conduit, and have done it myself on a lot of sched 40 pvc pressure lines with no issues over time.
Practice on a scrap. After all it is extruded hot and cooled with a water bath after forming, so why not.

And just a thought, the j hangers may give you a ticking sound if hot water is run through that line due to the expansion /contraction of the heat/cool activity. Plastic strapping would prevent this before it is an issue.