# The Balance of Code and Plumbing Interpretation



## DUNBAR PLUMBING (Sep 11, 2008)

I'm sure this thread will go the distance in discussion.


As a plumber and drain cleaner, I find myself taking issue with building any piping system that I know I've encountered over time that proved to be horrible from the standpoint of cleaning the drain.


For example,



Double vanity utilizing a cross instead of a cross-wye. A cross wye will make the drain cleaning for that task when both drains foul a simple task.

If it is a cross tee, cable is always going to send across to the opposite dirty arm and now you've got the challenge of either 

1. Bending your cable (if not already) and fishing the drain till it drops

2. Using a drop-head bulb auger

3. Other method


I run 1/4" open hook for all smaller drains, bend the cable back at 6" almost at a 45 to drag the inside of the pipe, catch the sweep down on a tee before up.

When it comes to a cross tee, whether it's catching at toilet or vanities, to tell me that there's enough velocity in the fixture it serves to create a siphoning effect I don't buy.


Especially on a vanity application. On a toilet, I've yet to see a documented case exists where a cross wye was used and a toilet was sucked dry, whereby the not one S trap existed but 2. 


Prove the hard science that a cross wye is a known culprit in the plumbing system that follows residential, not commercial type settings that the volume of discharged water creates the ability to bring a siphon to a 1' 6" trap arm off a double vanity.


Code is implemented to minimum standard, not maximum, and just stating "well it's code, therefore it's wrong" doesn't cut it.


Another example where the code states and what is otherwise rubbish: 


"Inlet side of the trap will be the only slip joint allowable in the DWV system." 

^^^^

That was designed for testing reasons of the DWV system and that's it. That's why that code is implemented. 


But what about tub drain overflows, Gerbers? Slip joint on overflow. 


KY has a rule on new construction whereby you must glue the trap arms in. This makes it difficult for a drain cleaner from the start, damaging the ferruled edge instantly on the first turn into the piping. It also becomes a dangerous task when years have went by and you're cabling a drain with that length of trap arm being shook violently while drain cleaning, praying the brittle PVC doesn't snap off back at the tee from where all those years of hot water went down that sink from normal use, cooking water like hot water off the stove or the constant dishwasher cycles pushing 120 degree water through the drains.

As mentioned, 

When you have to address the plumbing in a fouled mode, even though the system was designed to be nonfouling, I take issue to designs that make it very difficult to drain clean.


If that is the case, then maybe cleanout access should be incorporated in designs where this the case. I wouldn't expect to hold my breath on this notion, and just about every single cleanout would be covered up most times.


Like in California,

Constantly I hear about plumbers/drain cleaners accessing rooftops to clear drains due to no access to cleanouts, or they simply do not exist on the DWV systems.

That proves without a doubt that the people who run the show, enforce the codes do not partake in the care and maintenance of the plumbing system but only the initial building of the design.

A rant indeed, but many times I've seen where steps in the original design makes the maintenance of plumbing systems far easier for the down the road mentality. These people in the beginning stages of the design should put more thought into it, and not knock drain cleaners that redesign or remove these oversights to make maintenance a more accessible process.


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## Widdershins (Feb 5, 2011)

> Double vanity utilizing a cross instead of a cross-wye. A cross wye will make the drain cleaning for that task when both drains foul a simple task.


Nomenclature differs from region to region, so I'd appreciate it if you posted photo's of the two fittings in question when you have a few minutes.

The fitting in the photo below is called a partition cross or a fixture cross on the West Coast, but I've heard them called by different names in other parts of the country.


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## ILPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

The fitting above does not meet IL plumbing code. Hydaulic gradient is broken.

A sanitary cross can be used here to serve a double lav. BUT, a clean out must be installed in the riser that serves the lavs.


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## plumb nutz (Jan 28, 2011)

Had a boss of mine tell me once that "You dont know sh*t about plumbing until you do service work. Repairing or working on someone else's f-ed up **** and figuring out how to do it without making a bigger mess or problem, that's plumbing son."

Having worked both sides of the trade, I know a hell of a lot more now than I did before I did service work, and am constantly cussing the new construction guys for f-ing me every chance they get.


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## Widdershins (Feb 5, 2011)

ILPlumber said:


> The fitting above does not meet IL plumbing code. Hydaulic gradient is broken.
> 
> A sanitary cross can be used here to serve a double lav. BUT, a clean out must be installed in the riser that serves the lavs.


 I get what You're saying about hydraulic gradient and even agree with you.

And yet a Sanitary Cross would be prohibited to serve a pair of lavs on the West Coast because the radial openings aren't of a sufficient enough sweep to prevent effluent from entering the other opening.

The kicker for me is that a medium sweep 90 is permissible for horizontal to vertical drainage transitions here on the Left Coast, which is essentially the same radius as that found in a Sanitary Cross.

These kind of regional differences make it very difficult to pick up and take your trade to a different state.

Here is another acceptable practice that is unique to the Left Coast:

It is a kitchen sink rough-in with a Johnson Tee, a type of dishwasher air gap found, AFAIK, only on the Left Coast.


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## grandpa (Jul 13, 2008)

I have heard all about the Johnson Tee, and as far as I know, that is strictly a WA thing. I don't see anything that would violate UPC, it just isn't found down here.


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## Widdershins (Feb 5, 2011)

grandpa said:


> I have heard all about the Johnson Tee, and as far as I know, that is strictly a WA thing. I don't see anything that would violate UPC, it just isn't found down here.


 They're even manufactured here in WA -- I suspect they'll be phased out after the next code revision in 2012, though. The manufacturer isn't interested in retooling his production line in order to increase the size of the inlet.

There have been arguments for years about the wisdom of taking a 7/8" discharge hose, the size commonly found on higher end dishwashers these days and throttling it down to 5/8", which is essentially what a Johnson Tee does.


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## Plantificus (Sep 17, 2009)

I once ran into this double vanity problem, I ended up opening the wall inside the vanity and installing a clean out on the vent right above the tee. I was lucky that the vanity had a drywall back so after a small drywall repair the customer had a nice hidden clean out, worked out nicely.


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## plumb nutz (Jan 28, 2011)

why hide a clean out? doesnt that defeat the purpose if know one but you knows its there to accesss?


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING (Sep 11, 2008)

plumb nutz said:


> Had a boss of mine tell me once that "You dont know sh*t about plumbing until you do service work. Repairing or working on someone else's f-ed up **** and figuring out how to do it without making a bigger mess or problem, that's plumbing son."
> 
> Having worked both sides of the trade, I know a hell of a lot more now than I did before I did service work, and am constantly cussing the new construction guys for f-ing me every chance they get.


 
My thoughts exactly. That's why I will change some designs regardless of code reference. 2 items that I feel strongly enough to entertain a solid debate.



plumb nutz said:


> why hide a clean out? doesnt that defeat the purpose if know one but you knows its there to accesss?


Clean outs are so notorious for being hidden that anyone is hard pressed to enforce access to one. A very difficult situation that affects the long term AND the maintenance of any system.

Try telling a customer they have to open walls to find a cleanout in a finished basement and they look at you and say "Well, last time there was a clog they opened it from the lavatory in the back bathroom." 

???

Do F***king what? This is a main drain clog leading to your yard! :furious: Some people don't get it, even if they had a lavatory sink clog up and think it's the same pipe that 4 times its size. Then they get mad at you for correcting them of their ignorance of the situation. 



Widdershins said:


> And yet a Sanitary Cross would be prohibited to serve a pair of lavs on the West Coast because the radial openings aren't of a sufficient enough sweep to *prevent effluent from entering the other opening*.


 
That constantly happens with a cross, the effluent trades back and forth and a camera inspection would prove it with 2 toilets installed and the camera pointing down in the center of the cross. If you have a toilet pulled and someone flushes above, you get the benefit of seeing just what shot out of someones arse, free of charge.

The two pictures you posted? That would work instantly in this area better than a cross wye, given the 45 degree intersection into the drain. Those tees are near impossible to find in my area and they most likely wouldn't pass code, but,

I can get a cable down that without any problems and not travel across, heading the cable where I would need it to go to remove the clog.


Asking for an inspector to approve, let alone tell a builder to approve/enforce an access panel for a cleanout below that cross is fruitless. Even if it is in there, no one is going to leave it open, no one is going to butcher out the back of a base cabinet to gain entry to that cleanout when the majority of the time the fixture operates error free.


What's the big deal? 


Put yourself in a drain cleaners position when dealing with that scenario and you're fishing blindly looking at yourself in the mirror, getting pissed off not knowing how many times you're going to pull back and forth till the sound of rotation of the cable goes quiet instead of heading to the opposite trap or toilet.


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## easttexasplumb (Oct 13, 2010)

Here a san cross is legal as long as the top of the cross penetrates the roof, and that's our clean out.


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## RealLivePlumber (Jun 22, 2008)

But, then you would have to get up on the roof with a drain machine.......................:jester::laughing:


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

I will admit that I've lugged my K-60 and equipment up onto a roof, (one time even a 2-story roof) but now that I'm smarter with age...:yes: I tell customer if they have no yard c.o., then I can install one. 

If I get a customer who has had drain cleaning done before where the tech got up on the roof, I hit 'em with the line, well my insurance won't pay if something happens to me on the roof. So due to insurance regulations, I have to install a c.o.; I can't climb up like Tarzan or the last Roto-Rooter guy who was here last year.


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## Richard Hilliard (Apr 10, 2010)

Here the Double Ty or Double combo is not legal; it was not legal in Ohio when I was there either. I am not sure if it is in the code here when I was doing new construction we used the southern building code and it required a cleanout at the base of a vertical drain stack. 


Was that a 1½ standpipe for a washing machine?


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

Richard Hilliard;178988[COLOR=red said:


> ][/COLOR]Here the Double Ty or Double combo is not legal; it was not legal in Ohio when I was there either. I am not sure if it is in the code here when I was doing new construction we used the southern building code and it required a cleanout at the base of a vertical drain stack.
> 
> 
> Was that a 1½ standpipe for a washing machine?


 



Double combo isn't permitted by code? I wasn't aware.


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## Richard Hilliard (Apr 10, 2010)

not for a verticle drain the drain is higher than the vent. That is why you will see stack tee's in place of the cross.

When I moved here I got the biggest kick out of you cannot pass a major by a minor. I never heard that phrase until Florida. Plumbing is plumbing but the terminology is different.

You can use them horizonatally


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

Richard Hilliard said:


> not for a verticle drain the drain is higher than the vent. That is why you will see stack tee's in place of the cross.
> 
> When I moved here I got the biggest kick out of you cannot pass a major by a minor. I never heard that phrase until Florida. Plumbing is plumbing but the terminology is different.
> 
> You can use them horizonatally


 



Oh now I understand, you were referring to using a double-combo in a situation where you need a double sanitary-tee i.e.: when flow is coming from a fixture (horiz) and flowing to a vertical pipe.

I have used double-combos when flow is horiz. to horiz. as in an underground situation, so when I read your post I thought the code had changed.


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

Richard Hilliard said:


> not for a verticle drain the drain is higher than the vent. That is why you will see stack tee's in place of the cross.
> 
> When I moved here I got the biggest kick out of you cannot pass a major by a minor. I never heard that phrase until Florida. Plumbing is plumbing but the terminology is different.
> 
> You can use them horizonatally


 




Yup, that is what I was taught, you can't wash a major past a minor. I think that actually has changed, but I still practice it.


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## Prscptn Plmbng (Feb 15, 2011)

Widdershins said:


> Nomenclature differs from region to region, so I'd appreciate it if you posted photo's of the two fittings in question when you have a few minutes.
> 
> The fitting in the photo below is called a partition cross or a fixture cross on the West Coast, but I've heard them called by different names in other parts of the country.


I know that as a figure 5

Prescription Plumbing Inc 
P.O.Box 6378 
Oceanside, CA 92502


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## bionic shane (May 10, 2011)

In MD (WSSC) I have had double tee wye's fail. because it breaks trap weir. You should not have a vent opening below the trap weir. double san. tee's are fine. But are terrible to snake!


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## plumb nutz (Jan 28, 2011)

Maybe in the county your in, but because each MD county has its own code, you could fail for having a double san-tee and not a wye. Happened to me on the peninsula.


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

bionic shane said:


> In MD (WSSC) I have had double tee wye's fail. because it breaks trap weir. You should not have a vent opening below the trap weir. double san. tee's are fine. But are terrible to snake!


 



Bionic Shane, please post us an intro in the introduction section. Tell us how long you're in the trade, licenses held, type of work you do, etc.


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

An oversized double combo does not break hydrualic gradient. The horizontal legs in the double combo are combination waste-vent.

We had this discussion a while back and I made a short vid to demonstrate the point.

http://youtu.be/CNtf0LPtEL4


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

The original thread that prompted the video:

http://www.plumbingzone.com/f6/island-sink-272/


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

Reference # please 



Richard Hilliard said:


> Here the Double Ty or Double combo is not legal; it was not legal in Ohio when I was there either. I am not sure if it is in the code here when I was doing new construction we used the southern building code and it required a cleanout at the base of a vertical drain stack.
> 
> 
> Was that a 1½ standpipe for a washing machine?


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

That code was removes over a decade ago.



Tommy plumber said:


> Yup, that is what I was taught, you can't wash a major past a minor. I think that actually has changed, but I still practice it.


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## U666A (Dec 11, 2010)

Protech said:


> That code was removes over a decade ago.


I'm afraid I still don't fully understand the saying... Lil help?


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

The idea was that you could not rough in the drains so that a slug of water could separate say a tub trap from the vent. Everything must connect to the vent up stream of the toilet so that the water slug doesn't was by those branch connections and separate them from the vent.

With the mandate of low flow toilets, there was no longer a need for the code. If you have ever inspected a drain with a camera and flushed a toilet, you would notice that there is not sufficient volume and velocity of water to take up more than 2/3 of the pipe cross section.

Did that answer your question?





U666A said:


> I'm afraid I still don't fully understand the saying... Lil help?


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

Expanding on what ProTech stated, if you are roughing-in a laundry to a vertical stack and there is also a lav sink dumping into the same vertical stack, the major fixture had to be the lower of the (2) san tees on that stack. 

So the bottom santee was let's say 3"x3"x2". And on top of that you had to put the smaller santee picking up the lav sink (3"x3"x1 1/4"). Hence, you were not washing a major fixture past a minor one. This was to protect the trap seals of the smaller fixtures from, in theory being emptied when the larger fixture drained.


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

Tommy plumber said:


> Expanding on what ProTech stated, if you are roughing-in a laundry to a vertical stack and there is also a lav sink dumping into the same vertical stack, the major fixture had to be the lower of the (2) san tees on that stack.
> 
> So the bottom santee was let's say 3"x3"x2". And on top of that you had to put the smaller santee picking up the lav sink (3"x3"x1 1/4"). Hence, you were not washing a major fixture past a minor one. This was to protect the trap seals of the smaller fixtures from, in theory being emptied when the larger fixture drained.


 



By the way, a similar situation exists when (2) gas appliances with natural draft are connected to the same chimney or vertical vent. In order to achieve proper draft, the larger BTU appliance has to be lower on the chimney and the smaller BTU appliance is connected above. Florida Fuel Gas Code 503.10.4


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

And in this example, the discharge from a laundry is not enough to slug a 3" stack in a single story.



Tommy plumber said:


> Expanding on what ProTech stated, if you are roughing-in a laundry to a vertical stack and there is also a lav sink dumping into the same vertical stack, the major fixture had to be the lower of the (2) san tees on that stack.
> 
> So the bottom santee was let's say 3"x3"x2". And on top of that you had to put the smaller santee picking up the lav sink (3"x3"x1 1/4"). Hence, you were not washing a major fixture past a minor one. This was to protect the trap seals of the smaller fixtures from, in theory being emptied when the larger fixture drained.


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