Bath Sink Drain (50 yrs old)

[Puddin' Man]

Re: Bath Sink Drain (50 yrs old)

Hi,

I belong to a little 50 year-old brick bungalow in the midwest.

There's a small bathroom that's never been remodeled. A small sink with a U-trap, drain running horizontally thru tiles into the wall maybe 14" above the floor.

The portion of the drain that runs from the pvc U-trap into the wall is badly rusted. The drain runs very slowly. I've cleaned out the U-trap, run Drano thru, etc (no help).

I can't see anything of the sink drain from the basement. I figger it does a bend and runs (inside the wall and floorboards) into the toilet drain. But what do I know? :-)

At least part of the sink drain pipe will need to be replaced before long. I am sorta half-handy at plumbing. How might such replacement be accomplished?

Thanks, Peetie

[m Ransley]

put in a pipe monkey it will eat its way clean only 15.95 at K mark , there baathroom monkey works good to, fur 19.95 at K mark cleans all day and night for peanutes

[Puddin' Man]

Likely good advice if the pipe wasn't rusted so badly.

I fear that if I snake or monkey or the rusty pipe, the seal for the U-trap will start leaking. Then I'll be "down the river" ...

Puddin'

[dkarnes]

can you see a nut (where the pipe screws into the wall pipe). if you can i would replace that piece and snake from there, if you need to.

[Montego]

I had the same problem last year. I had a small leak in a horizontal steel drainpipe on the bathroom sink. The pipe was rotten. Luckily, I had a vanity to covery up my work, because I had to cut a hole around the pipe. The pipe extended into the wall about two inches and was screwed into a larger vertical pipe.

It sounds like you don't have the vanity, so cosmetics will be more important. You might try disconnecting the trap and then putting a pipe wrench on the horizontal pipe to see if you can twist it out without disrupting the tiles. If so, you might be able to replace it the same way. However, there's probably a good chance that you'll have to carefully removing the surrounding tiles, and then saw a whole in the wall if things don't go well.

Tom

[Puddin' Man]

Thanks for the "heads up". It looks worse than yours ...

There's about 4" of horozontal pipe, then a flange that's flush with the tile. I very gently snaked it out, was gonna dry it out, smear a ton of petrol jelly in there, and Pray!

It sprung a leak by the flange. I shine a lite inside the pipe, it *looks* like only one (rotten) piece, all the way to the toilet drain line (maybe 3 ', all inside the wall).

Woe is po' me. :-(

Any/all suggestions welcome.

Cheers, Puddin'

[Speedy Jim]

What's on the other side of that wall? If it's just plaster/drywall, open that wall to make repair.

Jim

[Puddin' Man]

It is a partition wall between the bathroom and a bedroom.

The bathroom is very small. The sink/drain is very close to the toilet. I'd have to go thru 50-year-old tiles and (I think) about 1" of plaster on aluminum lath.

The whole thang's gotten insane.Evidently the original plumbers planted a genuine time-bomb ...

I'm thinkin' maybe some flexible pipe I can insert thru the rotten pipe and an adapter to go from the smaller diameter flex pipe to the 1.25" p-trap fitting. Do such things exist?

Thanks, Puddin'