# Her brother from lowes don't knows plumbing



## O.C. plumberman (Nov 21, 2008)

My 2nd to last call last Friday, (after being on call 10 days in a row) I found this gem of draining genius in a 120 year old house that was brought to my blood shot eyes from a local lowes worker trying to help his sister out. The text page I received was..... "Sewer smell coming from kitchen sink starting to stop up and little white particals are coming up" I meet a nice h/o who shows me to the kitchen where I find a bar sink on one side of the kitchen and a regular stainless sink on the other side. I look under the bar sink and while looking at it I hear a tap sound that sounded like gulp,..... hmm, does this lady have hiccups? :no:.... then I look under the other sink hear the same gulp sound and I see no continuous waste just 2 traps going into 2 waste arms and then they came together by a 90 on each side then ran into a horizontal section of 2" pvc from each side with a 2" santee in the middle going down toward the basement into a 2" line. I say to the nice customer lady, can I take a look in your basement mam,...she says sure and shows me the way down to the basement, and I look at her plumbing and find 2 mechanical vents, 1 for her sink mentioned last above...and one for her dishwasher discharge line that was full of reducers on one side to accommodate the dishwasher discharge hose and had a trap on the other end of it.... take a look :laughing:







This is the line coming into the double wye on the far right inlet in the next picture btw.......the bar sink has it's own line (it must be special) and takes the middle inlet on the double wye and on the far left inlet of the double wye is the other mechanical vent for the sink with 2 traps, this goes into 2 90's glued together as seen in the picture below, a 3rd trap of sorts since after that loop it drains uphill, this explained it all gulp included.







She tells me her brother works at lowes and was trying to help her out but she needs her sink to work....I tell her I can fix this for her if she gets me back in to do the job right,.... she agrees and I tell her "well let me open the line up for you. So I cut off the line with the trap as close to the loop as I can and I find it starts to rain, what can I do but snake it through the loop right? after it stops raining I get the super-vee run it through the line, through the loop and shazzam! it's draining again for now, although holding a small amount of water and going uphill (yea, there is no warranty here.) If she gets me back out there to re-drain her kitchen I'll take pics again and show you guys what it should look like, when the plumber comes to town....... until next time :whistling2:


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

I just stabbed my eyes repeatedly with an icepick.... :laughing:

I cannot unseen what has been seen....


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## Drain Man NY (Mar 3, 2013)

Gotta love it when friends and family "help out" especially because "Ya know, those plumbers sure are expensive!"


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## money turds (Oct 10, 2013)

Don't forget... her brother "thinks he's a plumber" and works at Lowes!


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## rjbphd (Feb 5, 2010)

money turds said:


> Don't forget... her brother "thinks he's a plumber" and works at Lowes!


 Same disease over at Home Depot


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## suzie (Sep 1, 2010)

The plumbing looks like a waterpark ride. Just got off the phone with a woman who said the guy at Lowe's said...maybe she should give your bill to her brother to pay:laughing:


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

Another satisfied customer who bought my book... :thumbup:


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## O.C. plumberman (Nov 21, 2008)

Redwood,Drain Man NY,money turds,rjbphd, and suzie, you all made me laugh my butt off with your posts here :laughing: thanks for that


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## O.C. plumberman (Nov 21, 2008)

"If she gets me back out there to re-drain her kitchen I'll take pics again and show you guys what it should look like, when the plumber comes to town......."

Well she did get me back there so I decided to take a few pics,..... btw her bar sink, k-line, dishwasher discharge line, and tub all drain nicely now, all going down hill at least a 1/4" per foot. No more gurgling, no mechanical vents and no more traps under the house (a.k.a waterpark rides, btw that was funny Suzie :laughing 
Alright here's the pics :whistling2:



















One more thing I met the brother from lowes, he was a nice guy, I told him I respected the fact that he gave it a shot, after I hooked up the dishwasher discharge line to a wye branch fitting on the tailpiece under the k-sink after throwing a vent loop in it (IPC 802.1.6) I saved the the last connection (p-trap) for the brother from lowes so he could put the icing on the cake. Now he can say he's a plumbing specialist at lowes again with a big smile and the nice lady customer is going to have me out again to run some gas line for her and hook up her log lighter fireplace :thumbsup:


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## MTDUNN (Oct 9, 2011)

Looks a lot better. Do you usually use foam core and no purple?


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## O.C. plumberman (Nov 21, 2008)

Thanks MTDUNN ,....... This is what they stock at the shop where I work so that's what we use. The company policy is only go to a supplier if you can't find it in the shop and this is what they had so that's what I used. If I was out west I would of just ran some abs


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## MTDUNN (Oct 9, 2011)

O.C. plumberman said:


> Thanks MTDUNN ,....... This is what they stock at the shop where I work so that's what we use. The company policy is only go to a supplier if you can't find it in the shop and this is what they had so that's what I used. If I was out west I would of just ran some abs


I live out west and ABS is no better.


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## LIQUID (Sep 26, 2013)

I too live out west and hate cell core and not really a fan of drainline either.. both seem cheap. Nice work btw.


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## wyoredman (Oct 10, 2013)

Foam core for vents, Sched 40 for drains, and every socket needs to show purple in my service area! (Out West, as you say):thumbup:


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## LIQUID (Sep 26, 2013)

Yeah, for vents I wouldn't have issues using foam core.

Here too I believe all drainline must show purple and be glued usimg grey ( its in the codebook actually ) but the company I currentlly work for does not stock much for purple primer and the glue they use is clear.


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## RW Plumbing (Aug 16, 2010)

Purple looks like shiot. We don't have to use it here luckily.


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## rjbphd (Feb 5, 2010)

RW Plumbing said:


> Purple looks like shiot. We don't have to use it here luckily.


I think its pretty if ya know how to use it like an artist...


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## O.C. plumberman (Nov 21, 2008)

MTDUNN said:


> I live out west and ABS is no better.


 I was referring to Orange county California (out west) where I started the plumbing trade and where the only plastic pipe allowed for drains is abs....Also Ohio code doesn't require purple primer on schedule 40 cellular core ...capisce?


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## MTDUNN (Oct 9, 2011)

O.C. plumberman said:


> I was referring to Orange county California (out west) where I started the plumbing trade and where the only plastic pipe allowed for drains is abs....Also Ohio code doesn't require purple primer on schedule 40 cellular core ...capisce?


And I was referring to Oregon


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## O.C. plumberman (Nov 21, 2008)

MTDUNN said:


> And I was referring to Oregon


 ...... :laughing:


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## LIQUID (Sep 26, 2013)

rjbphd said:


> I think its pretty if ya know how to use it like an artist...


A chain vice grip with a towel under it keeps it from running down and staining streak lines on vertical in my experience, for other joints you just gotta be careul. 

I had the pleasure of jack hammering open a basement floor today due to cellular core abs. When they poured the cement it ovalized the end of the pipe for about the last foot ( bathtub trap arm ) I have never seen such **** pipe ever before. Lucky for me today was my last day at that place, hopefully I never see cell core abs ever again, I don't own a company but I do a lot of side jobs and I can afford to use regular abs, I see no excuse to use this crap I a big operation ( I would use It for vents I suppose but reallabs is already cheal as chips ) .


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## O.C. plumberman (Nov 21, 2008)

wyoredman said:


> Foam core for vents, Sched 40 for drains, and every socket needs to show purple in my service area! (Out West, as you say):thumbup:


Different states different code. Even though Ohio code allows us to bury that cellular core schedule 40 pvc pipe..... I haven't nor would I do that with cellular core schedule 40 pvc or abs.. The pipe in the pics was ran in a open area in a basement and is better than the old cast and galvi they originally had in place before the brother from lowes attempted a re-drain. On a different note;....I heard the reason that code required purple primer in the first place was because of medium strength clear pvc glue that was often used before the heavy duty stuff was common and that with no primer at all causing the pipe to come apart regularly. I guess the inspectors wanted to see purple because they wanted to know the pipe was primed before being glued, purple solved that issue. Btw that is heavy duty oatley clear glue with clear oatley primer on that cellular core schedule 40 pvc pipe. :whistling2:


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