I am going to work on an old house that has the bathroom in the basement. All of the drain pipes are embeded in concrete. I want to add a new bathroom upstairs and would like to know what is the best way to locate the sewer pipe in the floor. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you Robert Barch
"Robert Barcheski"
Take up the toilet in the basement to see how the closet runs. Or locate the vent stack and go from there. There's probably a full sized (3" or 4") stack somewhere. Why not tie in above the concrete?
Well if you want to do it yourself, I can respect that. But at the very least you should probably get a plumber to help you lay things out so you don't cut off a vent or improperly tie in to the pipes that are in the basement.
As for where to cut the floor, if you are only dealing with ONE bathroom, code would only require a 3" pipe to service that one toilet and carry the additional load from your tub and lavatory. In that case, you probably have a 3" stubbed to the outside of building. In my area, within 10-feet of the structure we are required to increase pipe diameter to 4". Look for a cleanout outside the building. Most plumbers try to make a straight shot to the outside of the structure.
Otherwise, you can take a jackhammer and start pounding that concrete around the flange...just follow the pipe. Also - be sure that you know where your gas and other utilities come in. Your gas probably stubs in higher than that floor. But it sure would suck if you hit it with the jackhammer and burned your house down. Of course, with insurance, you might come ahead on that deal.
Like I said, have a licensed man eyeball the thing before you start trying to tie in to the existing building drain. I know you probably won't have it inspected. But at least make sure it is installed to code. When we plumbers come behind to do work 15 or 20 years later, when we diagnose a problem, we make a diagnoses with the assumption that the job was inspected (and we to code).
Also, if you have pipe under slab (listen carefully EVERYONE) or hidden behind a wall, go ahead and snap a quick digital photo of the damn thing. Lay a tape measure on the ground too so the future will have some way of knowing what is happening under that floor.
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