[tibberous]

For some reason my house has a thick, metal drain pipe. I think it might be iron, not sure, but it is damn hard to cut through.

Two questions:

- Is there some trick to getting it apart at the fittings? Or at all? Cutting through four inch steel pipe with a cheap, battery powered recip saw is a huge pain.
- Once it's apart, what is the best way to connect it to PVC? It is already connected to PVC in another place with a rubber coupling - should I just use another one of those?

 

[McSteve]

It's probably cast iron. You''ll want to rent a tool called a chain cutter, which wraps around the pipe and cuts/snaps through it.

If this is a main soil stack running vertically, you'll want to somehow support the section above your cut before you cut it, because it weighs a ton and will otherwise head straight for the bottom of your house, with little regard for whatever might be in it's way.

To connect to PVC, those rubber couplings are just the thing.

 

[tibberous]

Took me like 8 hours, three blades and two saws, but I got through it with a recip saw - WHY IN THE HELL WOULD YOU USE CAST IRON?! Plus, there is ****-water all though my basement. =/

There is so much stupid stuff in this house - no foresite was ever put into anything. I've had to replace like three wires because they were attached with 1 1/2 long staples that were hammered in hard enough to cut the insulation. Finding so much bad **** too - like a 30 amp knob and tube fuse put in a box with 15 amp wire, old wires to phone / satalite / dsl / whatever, a second well (or maybe just a second pump) that does god-knows-what, HUNDREDS of nails in the joists - presumably to hang stuff??, dozens of (sometimes convenient) gas / water lines to know where. Just getting annoying, I figured I'd spend the day framing walls, and instead I'm having to reroute giant sections of IRON plumbing!

 

[DannyT]

cast iron used to be the standard and is still used in some applications today.

 

[oh'mike]

For others that are facing cast iron drains---spend $20.00 and rent a chain breaker--pops the pipe ,clean, in 5 minutes or less.

 

[Marqed97]

Heh...I've never lived in a house that DIDN'T have cast iron drain pipes. This past weekend staying at my sister's new house (basement bedroom) I did notice the PVC drains are quite a bit louder...