It may be just bad camera angles, but the first rule for pluming is that S--t runs downhill and It may be you are not getting complete drainage of the pipes past the Ptraps. The toilet should be OK but some of the plumbed P-traps look low to the flow to me
That "abandoned" part to the left in Pic one begs another Q - it needs capped as it won't have water in the P-trap very long and once dried out its open to the main sewer.
Thanks for the suggestions and info.
- The first rule for pluming is that S--t runs downhill
- The second rule of plumbing is that the boss is a sonuvabit_ch
- The third rule of plumbing is that payday is Friday
- The fourth rule of plumbing is that you don't bite your fingernails
I added the other three I soon learned working in Miami back in the early 1970's, building and re-modeling Winn Dixies, which at the time was the largest by-far grocery chain in FL. I learned a lot watching the other trades, and speaking with the tradesmen. I also got in the habit of hitting the flea markets shopping for tools, some Sundays I'd hit three, from Miami to Hialeah, to Ft. Lauderdale. I still have nearly all of those, and the work I've done with my tools paid for their acquisition, which I presume is the same for most of the frequent posters here.
The house hasn't had any real plumbing issues until just recently, of which I am aware. The ductile cast iron pipe was replaced in parts by PVC Sch. 40 DWV. That may have been done during the time my in-laws owned it, going back 56 years from today. The home is 78 y.o. and was built after WW II.
One of the GJ members questioned "why-not ABS pipe?" I asked the qualifier at the plumbing business about that, and he said, "PVC Sch. 40 DWV is the industry standard here for residential use. ABS has Miami-Dade County Product Approval, but we don't use it much. We do sometimes encounter it in our work doing repairs."
The abandoned-in-place PVC line has been removed during the shower drain P-trap replacement.
I may spend some time working on the plumbing tomorrow, though my wife and our son have convinced me that if the job is going to require me to wear PPE like a biohazard contamination suit to do the job (safely, and while minimizing/hopefully preventing exposure to really disgusting biohazard substances) "that's what a lifetime of savings is for, so you
don't need to do that work." I decided to investigate local plumbers, and I found a third-generation family operating a local business. The grandfather began it in 1926 and he knew Henry Flagler, whose history in Florida and elsewhere in the business world is a good read. Flagler built a railroad across the archipelago of islands known as the FL Keys, and descending the peninsula of FL first to Miami, and then beyond to the south, to Key West. Julia Tuttle famously sent a bouquet of orange blossoms to Henry Flagler in the middle of the winter, he was north of the Mason-Dixon Line. That made Flagler check-out Miami as a possible point for his railroad to service, and then he decided to have his business friends help him in the endeavor. Miami began as a tourism destination and a place for people to live in the winter, away from the inclement snow and sleet of the North.
I drilled a dozen holes while searching for the studs. Covered the up "dry holes" with white silicone seal.
