ABS Pipe Annular Cutter

[6.5 Fan]

Daughter has plumbing issues in my parents old house, The pipe that runs out to the septic tank is cast iron and has collapsed under the concrete floor. Time to rent a jack hammer. This house was built in 58 and nothing lasts forever.

 

[DPittman]

Daughter has plumbing issues in my parents old house, The pipe that runs out to the septic tank is cast iron and has collapsed under the concrete floor. Time to rent a jack hammer. This house was built in 58 and nothing lasts forever.

Yup in my house of the same era it was the big 4" cast iron pipe behind a wall that rusted through. It never leaked liquid (above drain level) but there would be occasional sewer gas smell from behind the wall. I replaced all with abs and have never worried about it again until this thread.

 

[little ol' e]

I'll try to section a few of the failed parts. Not sure what to expect.

I wonder if it could be a venting issue? I don't know much about plumbing and venting but I have heard some pipes rattle in older homes when flushing the toilet, draining the kitchen sink etc.
When I was a younger kid, (Jus' an old kid now) I thought my Grandmothers house was haunted. Every time I pulled the plug out of the bathtub or kitchen sink, I heard rattles and gremlins of all sorts coming up from the drains...
I hope you find the cause and chase those Gremlins out of the pipes for good!

 

[Tecnico]

Reading this thread makes me wonder about the long term reliability of the latest "innovation", foam/cellular core ABS DWV pipe. I presume it's made that way to reduce the volume of ABS needed to make pipe and save small amounts of production cost.

I noticed the foam thing one day when I went looking for ABS stock to machine.

Thankfully my house doesn't seem to have any......

D

 

[historicalarms]

Daughter has plumbing issues in my parents old house, The pipe that runs out to the septic tank is cast iron and has collapsed under the concrete floor. Time to rent a jack hammer. This house was built in 58 and nothing lasts forever.

For a time I was employed in supervising the water / sewage installation business in a Calgary subdivision and hired crews that worked on sewage repairs in the older parts of the city...the horor stories they could tell about the crumbling infrastructure by the thousands of miles of decaying lines in all of North America. Many many miles in Cowtown alone with no pipe left, just a hole left by the pipe that fluids keep washing bigger & bigger... When a sink hole opens up in a city street and swallows a bus or cars, that swirl pool that creates the hole pretty much always originates from one of these sewer runs. its not only house systems that are decaying, total "old city" infrastructure is stressed.

And Susquatch...a warning from another old bugger... that stress in the house piping system is causing stress in your own piping system that can come to no good end...take a rest pls.

 

[curmudgeon]

Reading this thread makes me wonder about the long term reliability of the latest "innovation", foam/cellular core ABS DWV pipe. I presume it's made that way to reduce the volume of ABS needed to make pipe and save small amounts of production cost.

Cellular core ABS has been around for quite a while; I think earlier than @Susquatch 's home was built. Another "benefit" is that it is significantly lighter than the older ABS pipe; saving more pennies on shipping and distribution.

 

[6.5 Fan]

A person could always take the Mike Holmes approach to renovations, spend 250,000 on a 50,000 house.

 

[curmudgeon]

Yup in my house of the same era it was the big 4" cast iron pipe behind a wall that rusted through. It never leaked liquid (above drain level) but there would be occasional sewer gas smell from behind the wall. I replaced all with abs and have never worried about it again until this thread.

I just finished pulling the remaining cast iron pipe from our home, replacing in with ABS. All of the cast iron pipe was in remarkably good condition; the only exceptions being the butt ends where it had been cut to splice in newer connections with Fernco style couplings. The cast iron piping is quieter than the new ABS piping. As far as I can piece together, our home was upgraded to cast iron DWV in the 50s along with a "modern" single chamber septic tank and field; this replaced the 3' long clay drain pipes and rock filled pit. The clay pipe ends were belled but I don't know if the connections were sealed.

As an aside, the Milwaukee 7 TPI Torch carbide Sawzall blades worked very well for cutting the cast iron pipe and fittings.

 

[Tom O]

My brothers house has had about 3 floods so far from the pressurized water lines letting go I’m thinking it’s from the hammering effect as the water is stopped.

 

[curmudgeon]

I don't know what to make of this. Yes, the regular connection that I sectioned was not fully seated and yes there was excess cement pooled up there. But I can't really see why that would weaken the connector.

For that matter, how does anyone control the amount of cement used or where it pools. Isn't this situation a standard consideration that happens all over the place in any given house? Why can't the fittings handle that?

What the heck does a fellow do when such a pipe connection fails in the walls between floors? Or in the first floor ceiling below the second floor in a two story home?

This whole thing is just plain wrong.

I feel your pain; very frustrating I'm sure.

The ABS cement is a solvent, that is supposed to dissolve the surfaces of the fitting and pipe, then fuse them together as the cement cures. Full depth seating ensures positive contact all around the pipe; the cement is not there as a glue to bridge a gap between pipe and fitting. Of course, some bridging may occur, pass a static pressure test, and be OK for a very long time. As I understand it, cement pooling means that the solvent dissolves more of the fitting than it was designed for, and it could weaken that fitting to a point where the combination of mis-alignment pressures during installation, and repeated hot-cold cycles eventually cause the fitting to fail.

Good workmanship includes:
- pipe and fittings are well aligned so there is no torque being applied to the joint
- pipe is well supported so its weight and the weight of its contents don't add torque
- there are sufficient expansion joints between floors in a combined waste/vent pipe to reduce the effect of heating/cooling cycles
- pipe is cut square, interior is deburred, and exterior is slightly chamfered to ensure it can be fully seated into the fitting without scraping all of the liquid cement out of the joint
- pipe is fully seated in the fitting

Skipping any of those steps can reduce the lifespan of a fitting. I'm not a trained plumber; just a homeowner that curses the shoddy ones.

To get at my most recent DWV project I had to cut open the finished drywall in a few locations - suggest you cut your drywall along the centres of nearby studs, and no closer than 6" from the ceiling or top of baseboards to make your drywall repairs a bit easier. Make your hole big enough the first time to do all your work in since it's the almost the same effort to patch a big one or a little one.

There is a chance that your DWV was installed by a professional plumber along with a poorly trained/supervised helper, and you've already found all of the helper's connections that are likely to fail. It wouldn't be wrong IMO to continue just dealing with the problems as they show up. Or, maybe not... Tough call. My experience with insurance claims is that they'll cover the cost of the damage, but not the cost of the repairs. e.g. a wet ceiling/floor/wall will be replaced, but if you cut open the ceiling/wall/floor as part of a repair it won't be covered.

If you do decide to bite the bullet and redo everything for peace of mind, suggest you open everything up before you start re-work and then work from bottom-up without trying to keep up-stream fixtures operational as you go. Working in the middle with 2 fixed ends is slow, hard going and typically adds unwanted stress to fittings. I foolishly did not take that path and had a very frustrating time rolling around in the crawlspace.

G'luck!!!

 

[Tecnico]

My brothers house has had about 3 floods so far from the pressurized water lines letting go I’m thinking it’s from the hammering effect as the water is stopped.

Are the pipes plastic? PEX? There's a page here that talks about failures in PEX systems including Kitec.

PEX Link

The biggest issue according to the reference seems to be dezincification of fittings. The link talks about being able to exceed the 20 - 25 year standard warranty which for me is less than I would expect for a reliable system.

Water hammer may just provoke a failing fitting to leak?

D

 

[Susquatch]

Are the pipes plastic? PEX? There's a page here that talks about failures in PEX systems including Kitec.

PEX Link

The biggest issue according to the reference seems to be dezincification of fittings. The link talks about being able to exceed the 20 - 25 year standard warranty which for me is less than I would expect for a reliable system.

Water hammer may just provoke a failing fitting to leak?

D

Water hammer is easy to deal with. Just need a small air bladder at the end of the lines. Doesn't even need to be big.

The other approach is to teach users to turn off taps slowly. Good luck with that one!

Ive hated PEX since the first time I saw it. My home is PEX end to end.

 

[Former Member]

A person could always take the Mike Holmes approach to renovations, spend 250,000 on a 50,000 house.

Never. I've seen the aftermath of a few Mike Holmes reno's, not impressed.