I am renovating an old basement in a house from the 50s. I tore up the old sink and capped off the water pipes for now. The drain was very surprising to me. As you can see from the pictures, there was a cast iron 2" pipe gring from the sink and laid in the floor drain 4 or 5". It was not sealed at all, just laying loose in there. Also, from the pic, you can see that there was a two inch or so lip on the drain and it appears the drain is made of clay or porcelain?
I do not know what to do with the drain...I want to put another sink in that area, can I just put the new pvc drain pipe from the sink to the floor drain and lay it loose in there like it was before with the old setup?
I may just leave the water pipes capped and be done with it...not sure about putting the work in (jack hammer floor, etc). This property has a septic tank, and the drain heads toward that direction. Thanks for the info!
I may just leave the water pipes capped and be done with it...not sure about putting the work in (jack hammer floor, etc). This property has a septic tank, and the drain heads toward that direction. Thanks for the info!
If you do abandon that drain, be sure to cap it off with an expansion plug or cap of some sort.
If your main sewer backs up, your going to have a wonderful smelling swimming pool in you basement.
I had a similar issue twice in the past couple years. I had cast iron drain pipes running into clay pipes just below the basement floor that had to be replaced. In fact, in both cases the top lip on the clay pipe was chipped on one side just like yours. The problem for me is that the clay pipe opening was oval where it needed the round 3" PVC pipe to seal.
I purchased a Fernco (brand) rubber doughnut from Lowes to join the PVC to the clay pipe. First I cleaned the inside of the clay pipe. Cut and mounted the PVC pipe securely to the brick wall with a couple wood blocks, Tapcon screws, and a metal pipe clamp screwed into the wood blocks. The end of the pipe was made to go a deep as possible into the clay pipe without obstructing the flow around the bend (~ 3" ?) Once it looked good, and everything lined up well, I marked the mating points, and pulled it apart to glue and seal it.
To make the the round PVC mate to the oval clay pipe, I inserted the PVC into the rubber doughnut, then heated it with a heat gun for a while until the PVC was soft enough. With the clay pipe lubed with silicon calking, I inserted
hot rubber doughnut with the hot (soft) PVC pipe inside it, and easily hammered the rubber doughnut into the clay pipe to the depth mark. Then I primed, glued and secured everything else. It worked great! Had to a different one a while later and used a propane torch to heat it, but the heat gun was easier.
I'm not a professional, so do your research before deciding to follow my process. Good luck with it, and let us know how it works out for you.
Based on your post, I assume you are on septic, not city sewer. I had a similar setup in my house, and it turned out that the sink drain did not go to the septic system at all, it simply emptied into a dry well under a basement addition. That is certainly not code, at least not for greywater, and you may have a similar setup, in which case you are best to cap the pipe and connect the sink drain to the septic system main drain in the house.
Where I stated "it had to be replaced", I meant the cast iron, not the clay (terracotta) pipe. In my opinion, from your photos, your clay pipe looks fine. I would not replace it.
Before I did this DIY job, I asked a lot of questions. A common response was to insert my PVC pipe into the clay pipe, stuff paper towel in the gap, then use hydraulic cement to seal it.
My house is about 70 years old, and it looked like the original plumber used simple cement mortar to "seal" it.
Since your are running from a basement sink, you certainly don't need 3" PVC pipe. Even though Fernco probably makes rubber doughnuts to adapt 2" PVC to the clay pipe, I would consider making the connection with 3", then adapt down to 2". it might be difficult to get the 2" PVC, with a thicker rubber doughnut to conform to the oval clay pipe opening. ... Now that I think about it, I'd probably try.
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