The new pipe installation was easy, but working with the old stuff was hard. I had help from a handyman that I knew from work, Stanley (Mr. Fix-it & Son). We cut out the old octopus (pipe connections) and patched in the new piping. The job went without a hitch. We then ran the new 3 inch waste around the basement and up to the new bath.

In the same day, the two of us even had time to cut a new valve into the existing hot water pipe for the hot water supply to the new bath.

It took another 2 full days working by myself to get the remaining waste and vent piping done. The hot and cold water was completed in another day. On new years day I had my butt on the roof, in 5 degree weather, installing the new 2 inch plumbing vent.

Then it was time for the inspection, but let me digress a little. At the time I submitted the plans, I was unaware of the beam directly over the lavatory sink wall. This beam made it impossible to bring the 1 1/2" vent up into the attic because it was in the way and we couldn’t go through it. I decided that the best resolution would be to go down with the vent, the same as would be done with an island sink in a kitchen (called loop vent).

Under the floor I connected it to the shower trap vent and then went up, into the attic hiding the pipe in the shower wall. This routing I was comfortable with.

When I was installing the shower trap and vent, I ran into a problem that I was less at ease about. After the trap, going in the direction of flow, the vent line has to come off the top of the drain line with a tee and then up to the attic. The line must be pitched back so water will drain. The problem was that the trap and vent connections had to be done in the joist space. The vent line could only go through the joist in the middle for structural reasons. The trap weir (which is where the waste water must go up and over inside the pipe) must be at the same level as the vent line take off. My problem was the duct, found immediately below the joists and under the trap; this prevented me from lowering the trap. It also made the weir too high for the vent line to come out even and go through the joist in the center. So I angled the pipe down for an inch after the weir, thus the vent line could make it through the center of the joist.

However, this now made the vent lower than the weir and in violation of the plumbing code. The inspector pointed this out right away. My argument was that the bottom of the vent was below the weir, but the top wasn’t (doublespeak from me). That didn’t matter to him, but he did see that there wasn’t an ideal solution short of moving the duct and re-doing the work. He reasoned that in the event of a drain clog, it could be cleared by installing a clean-out fitting in the loop vent. This would need an access door into the wall in the foyer. He passed me for the roughing inspection but he would check the loop vent clean-out at the final inspection.

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