# DIY DWV - So bad it's funny



## futz (Sep 17, 2009)

I started a renovation at this job today. The old house looks like the DIY owner did all his own plumbing (and carpentry). Maybe he converted an old shed into a house.

This is the main attraction. This guy had no clue whatsoever.  That 2" vent out the back wall is pretty funny.
That's a brand new skim coat. When I first looked in there it was mud. I was not looking forward to this job. The skim coat makes things MUCH nicer.








Note the 2x6 joists, 2' on center, with hardwood laid on them directly. No subfloor. No joist blocking. Must be springy as hell.
No vents at all except that one 2" going outside and up the back wall in eavestrough downspout pipe. The lav has one trap in the crawl and another in the vanity.  Hilarious!








The line heading to the right goes to the kitchen, about 20' away. No vent, almost no slope, sags, too many 90s, S-trapped. Almost everything piped with Qest fittings or whatever else he got from the hardware store.








This was outside the house. Note the nice wrong-way slope. It was stuffed into a piece of downspout that terminated with a couple elbows under the eaves to serve as a "vent".


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

Ahhh another one of my book customers...
I'd recognize that style anywhere...:laughing:


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## WestCoastPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

you know whats sad though, that crap "worked" thats why everyone can do plumbing, because it "works" as is for awhile....


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

Till someone dies from sewer gas exposure that is


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## futz (Sep 17, 2009)

WestCoastPlumber said:


> you know whats sad though, that crap "worked" thats why everyone can do plumbing, because it "works" as is for awhile....


Yup. It's worked that way for years. I doubt if it worked well, but it worked.

When they put on the addition, the guys took the old 4" sani outlet off the old junk septic and strung 30' or so of Big-O over to the new septic line. It's run over humps and bumps and then the new crawl was backfilled over it. Then the job sat for a couple weeks waiting for framing and me. They say it's starting to back up now. So now I have to race to get the DWV piped and connected properly to the septic. I hate being pushed. Got most new crawl DWV run Friday and stubbed to the old pipe. So Monday I guess I do a tough, ugly day and hack off the old, connect to the new and connect up the sewer. Has to be all done that day or else I'll be swimming in it.


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## futz (Sep 17, 2009)

Since that one house burned, I'm a bit more caught up and I have a Saturday off! Nice relaxation (I need it). So here's some pics of the new plumbing:

Replacement piping for the mess in the original post. Guess I should plug that old drain off with concrete. Also have to fix up the sloppy waterpipes the previous "plumber" left dangling and touching the heating pipe.








The other side of the wall, in the new addition. Pipe going to the left is for the kitchen.








New plumbing in addition under test, waiting for inspector.








Another shot of new piping.








Pic of new laundry and bathroom


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## SlickRick (Sep 3, 2009)

Nice looking job. :thumbsup:


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## ROCKSTARPLUMBER (Dec 14, 2008)

The last picture on there, the one of the laundry room, whats with the 4 stub outs on your water at the laundry sink. And why are 2 pex, and 2 copper? Also noticed there is no washer box, and that the drain is rolled out of the wall on a 45, and that it is a bit high, must be a stackable unit? Then the drain coming out of the wall for the laundy sink, is stubbed out at an angle, is it a free standing unit, or a drop in with cabinet? only reason i ask is that I hate that, hard to get your escuseon on properly with out bending the hell out of it.

Very clean work though. I roll my strap iron around the pipe once before i secure to joist. That is if im not using stove bolts.


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## futz (Sep 17, 2009)

ROCKSTARPLUMBER said:


> The last picture on there, the one of the laundry room, whats with the 4 stub outs on your water at the laundry sink. And why are 2 pex, and 2 copper? Also noticed there is no washer box, and that the drain is rolled out of the wall on a 45, and that it is a bit high, must be a stackable unit? Then the drain coming out of the wall for the laundy sink, is stubbed out at an angle, is it a free standing unit, or a drop in with cabinet? only reason i ask is that I hate that, hard to get your escuseon on properly with out bending the hell out of it.


Because my 3" vent and the tub valve ate up too much wall, I couldn't fit a laundry box. Had it all assembled and ready, but after mounting the tub valve I realized it wouldn't work. So the pex stubs are for the AW valves and shock arresters, which I'll mount to the wall behind the washer on finish. The copper stubs are for the laundry tub (cheap poly tub). The washer/dryer is a stacker, so I can have a nice extra tall drain. 

No escutcheon needed if the drywallers do a decent job (some even do!). Anyway, this house isn't terribly high-falutin. If the drywall hole isn't nice... well, it's under the laundry tub and nobody is going to look under there much.


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## ROCKSTARPLUMBER (Dec 14, 2008)

Escuseons are code here. Have to have them. Someting about fire, and critters. I dunno.


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## futz (Sep 17, 2009)

ROCKSTARPLUMBER said:


> Escuseons are code here. Have to have them. Someting about fire, and critters. I dunno.


I've worked in places where they are required, or were required but then weren't and then were again (stupid inspectors), but they aren't required here. I'm certainly not shy about using them though - if it needs an escutcheon to look nice it always gets one. Escutcheons are cheap.


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## Regulator (Aug 20, 2009)

You definitely left this place in better shape than when you found it to be sure. Do you know the age of the house?


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## Regulator (Aug 20, 2009)

futz said:


> I've worked in places where they are required, or were required but then weren't and then were again (stupid inspectors), but they aren't required here. I'm certainly not shy about using them though - if it needs an escutcheon to look nice it always gets one. Escutcheons are cheap.


Why is it that when regulations change, or a jurisdiction changes it policy, it always the inspectors' fault?


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## futz (Sep 17, 2009)

Regulator said:


> You definitely left this place in better shape than when you found it to be sure.


For sure. The old plumbing was pretty horrible. Some of it is staying put though, as it's outside the scope of our renovation. But I'm taking any excuse there is to upgrade/replace what I can.



Regulator said:


> Do you know the age of the house?


No. The plumbing was put in during the era of poly-b pipe and Qest fittings, tho... Probably in the 80's sometime. It's out in the sticks a bit (184 St. and 32 Ave. area) and there were probably no inspections out there at the time.


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## Regulator (Aug 20, 2009)

futz said:


> No. The plumbing was put in during the era of poly-b pipe and Qest fittings, tho... Probably in the 80's sometime. It's out in the sticks a bit (184 St. and 32 Ave. area) and there were probably no inspections out there at the time.


My guess would be that no permit was pulled at the time. 

But that's just me.


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## futz (Sep 17, 2009)

Regulator said:


> Why is it that when regulations change, or a jurisdiction changes it policy, it always the inspectors' fault?


Hehehe.  Not all inspectors are as smart and sensible as you.  LOL

They're just people, and some of them are pretty bad at what they do. I've worked in SO many different places and dealt with TONS of different municipalities and inspectors over the years. There's a huge amount of variation in how they interpret code and how they do their job. Most are pretty good, but...

There was an inspector in one town who was called "drive-by Ron". He was too fat and lazy to get out of his car. He'd often give you your inspection card at his car. Never looked at anything.

There's an inspector in a town I used to live in who I used to work with. I wouldn't trust this nitwit to plumb an outhouse. But he's an inspector now! 

I've had a couple inspectors on the payroll (weekend work) who I couldn't get rid of fast enough. Sloppy, bad workmanship. They were decent inspectors though.

Had a few who rejected on ridiculous, made-up things. Had to make em show me in the codebook. They couldn't find the rule of course and had to back down. Other places won't back down (the Kingdom of West Van, for instance).

Back when we used to travel all over the country we finally started compiling our own company codebook. It listed all the wacky crazy local rules that each area and the different inspectors in some of these areas enforced. They don't publish them, and they have nothing whatsoever to do with code. Saved us having to get rejected and change things every time we went back there.

Oh ya, another funny one: In Richmond, during the boom, the inspectors were insane in the brain. They WOULD NOT leave a job without rejecting something, even if they had to make up a new rule on the spot. It was craziness! We finally learned to plan for the extra day and leave something obvious and easy to fix for the inspector to reject. Then we'd recall and fix that and all was good. If we didn't do that he'd cook up something ridiculous that might require taking huge amounts of work apart and redoing things to suit him.

A friendly Toronto inspector once explained to me that if you were having constant trouble getting good work passed in that town (I had a master plumber license there at one time), the inspector was very likely looking for his "case of whiskey". Once that bit of business was taken care of you'd get your jobs passed.


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## TheSkinnyGuy (Sep 15, 2009)

ROCKSTARPLUMBER said:


> Escuseons are code here. Have to have them. Someting about fire, and critters. I dunno.


 
I just think they give a more "finished" look to a finish... if you catch my drift... The quality of escution is determined by the price eg. cheap plastic for the people that paid for the cheap plastic, and nice brushed nickel for those that paid for nice brushed nickel. Jobs without just seem unfinished to me. just an opinion.


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## Plasticman (Oct 14, 2008)

All looks nice to me but was wondering one thing besides what RSP mentioned and that is why did you not put the 3" stack between the laundry sink and washer riser and use 2 stacked tees instead of running a seperate 2" line up? The wall obviously has to be furred out for the 3" stack so you could have gotton the water piping for the laundry sink to fit. 
I'm just saying.


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## SlickRick (Sep 3, 2009)

Escutcheons

Just for info sake. IPC 304.4 Rodent proofing. In or on structures where openings have been made in walls,floors or ceilings for the passage of pipes, such openings shall be closed and protected by the installation of approved metal collars that are securely fastened to the adjoining structure. Anyway thats where it comes from...


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## futz (Sep 17, 2009)

Plasticman said:


> All looks nice to me but was wondering one thing besides what RSP mentioned and that is why did you not put the 3" stack between the laundry sink and washer riser and use 2 stacked tees instead of running a seperate 2" line up? The wall obviously has to be furred out for the 3" stack so you could have gotton the water piping for the laundry sink to fit.
> I'm just saying.


There's a very good reason for that, but you can't see it in the pics. The roof is oddball lean-to 2x6 stick framing (to match the old roof height), and there was no room in a 2x6 rafter with a drywall backing block to get a couple 3" elbows rolled to the roof angle. Couldn't terminate lower down the roof because of a dormer window right above it (B.C. code requires vent terminations to be minimum 10' from openings).

Here's a pic of the top of that wall. Where my vent comes through there's room where the lean-to meets the steeper upper roof, so I was able to use a single 45 there, tie in two other vents and then roll to the upper roof angle with another pair of 45s.


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## Plasticman (Oct 14, 2008)

Got cha.  I understand


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