Lead Drain Pipe Project

Turbo98

Well, I think we have a retired plumber coming over to wipe in the joint. He hasn’t seen it yet but I described the deal to him and he said it should be no huge deal. He did say it would be easier if the flange was still attached. So hopefully that works out. If not, we’ll have to get into the wall and see what’s up.

For what it’s worth, here are a couple pics. This one is of the lead pipe as it sits now. You can see some of the imperfections probably due to the tool they used to bend it. But overall, the lead is in fine shape:


I found another lead drain pipe in the house in the basement that is exposed. I took a pic of the joint where it’s leaded into the stack. I assume there is a brass ferrule underneath that lead. So I imagine all of the lead/CI joints are similar to this. It‘s not the best pic. The camera wouldn‘t take it in macro mode for some reason:


Anyway, thought somebody might like to see these.

TheEplumber

Thanks for the pics Turbo98. Lead is not seen much around my parts. When we do see it, we replace it with plastic as others have stated here. I'm interested in seeing the end result. In fact, could you post some "in progress photo's" when your plumber arrives?

Turbo98

Well, here’s what’s up now. I thought we were near the end of this project but apparently not. The plumber came out and did a good job on the pipe considering there wasn’t much there to work with (since I cut it off). Here is a pic of what he did:


While he was out, I had him do another one that had a borderline corroded pipe. He heated it up, took that one out and wiped this one in. Overall, he does nice work:


But after putting it all back together, the one was still leaking around the lead joint area and we couldn’t believe it. We looked into it very closely and then noticed that there is a hole in the lead pipe! Unreal! I’m sure this was there all of the time but was now larger because we disturbed that area. Here are a couple pics with a screw stuck in it:




I can’t believe that between us and the plumber, we didn’t notice this. Now we’re off to plan C which will be opening up the wall. I know there will be people saying “I told you so” saying to just go with plastic to begin with. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way I guess.

The plumber did mention that if we could get into the wall, he would just melt the lead off the brass ferrule that is leaded into the cast iron hub and use a “no hub” connector on the ferrule and tie into plastic there. So we will attempt to carefully melt off the lead and clean the ferrule up to receive the “no hub” connector. So this confirmed my thoughts of doing this vs. cutting out the ferrule.

One question though. What’s the difference between a “no hub” connector and the Fernco coupler? So they sell these “no hub” connectors at Home Depot or Lowes?

Thanks again for everybody’s help. If anybody is interested, I will post some more pictures along the way.

kibblesret

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself about the hole you have your screw in.

By the looks of your older pictures that small dent near the spiral marks on the pipe was done when the lead pipe was installed. When the pipe got heated now the remaining thin piece of lead melted away. That could be fixed by wiping it but me thinks it is time to change the pipe out. No worries then.

A pipe can be called a nohub pipe if it has smooth ends and no spigot or hub (bell) on the ends.

Fernco makes no hub couplers. I guess the way to describe a hub in a coupler is that there is an internal shoulder that the pipe stops on when you insert your new pipe. A no hub could slide along the pipe right past the end and be pulled back. Fernco no hubs have a stainless band around them so the pressure is even all the way around.

Post pictures for sure! Good luck too!