Swapping a toilet with a cast iron soil pipe

[ARWadsworth]

Any gotchas?

The incoming pipe from the cast iron stack is lead, replacement of the stack is not an option.

Anyone done this and had any problems? Or got any useful tips?

[A.Lee]

Lead? I've seen lead lined holes, but not full lead pipes.

Could be a nightmare if lead. How is the existing toilet sealed? Concrete/hemp/boss white mix around the pipe? I think I'd be be looking at replacing it with plastic, up to the soil stack joint anyway.

Pictures would tell a thousand words. Alan.

[ARWadsworth]

I'll cheat and have a look at the neighbours toilet.

Their toilet was swapped not long ago and shares the soil stack with the house where I am working.

The last thing my mate wants is a load of hemp and boss white around the pipe.

It was fixed to the lead with an flexi pipe that has been leaking (probably for years)

[chris French]

In message , ARWadsworth writes

Are you intending to replace the lead pipe?

In my old '30's house I did this - I was moving the toilet horizontally about 2-3 m further away from the soil stack, so had to replace the lead pipe anyway.

So used plastic soil pipe, for the run to the stack (with an adjustable bend to allow for the change in angle required), cleaned out the CI socket, the plastic pipe was a nice fit in the socket. Used something to seal the joint, I think it was the black gutter sealant. but any suitable sealant would do I guess.

[ARWadsworth]

I was hoping not to replace the lead pipe but I will if it as easy as you make it out to be.

I might have to if the new toilet does not fit the hole.

Did you have any problems removing the lead from the iron?

[John Rumm]

Generally speaking, any of the WC connectors with the finned rubber bits on the end can be stuffed down into most pipes that are mostly round and in the right range of diameters.

[chris French]

No, it was easy enough IIRC.

The joint was sealed with what seemed to be putty - of course all hard by then - easy enough to chop that out with an old chisel/screwdriver

[jgharston]

I had this, lead soil pipe from toilet leading to cast iron soil stack. If at all possible, the easiest thing to so was cut a section from the soil stack and insert a T with a double-end seal. The short black horizontal section here:

[ARWadsworth]

black pipe is lead. So is the mirror image grey pipe.

The horizntal pipe is cast iron.

[ARWadsworth]

See my reply to Mr Hartston for a picture.

I am sure I can get plastic into that joint.

Thanks

[ARWadsworth]

"VERTICAL" pipe:-)

[Tim Watts]

Interesting. We've got lead at work - or I guess it'd lead by the apperance of what look like wiped joints and the odd dent, under the paint... Never seen it before then.

I'd treat it like a bit of manky old cast iron, which I have done before.

Is the pipe near the boss end still resembling a circle?

If so, use a suitable WC pan adaptor with lots of big soft rubber flutes - the sort you'd normally use on cast iron. When I did one of these (in the

80's) it came with a pack of thick grease (presumably silicone) to smear inside the pipe and over the flutes to ensure a seal. If yours doesn't, I'd be inclined to buy a tub of the thickest plumbers grease the shop has.

The bogs at work appear to use a similar looking pan adaptor to the ones I'm thinking of and look as ropey as s**te, but they do not leak.

For good measure, I pumped a load of sealant (silicone would do) in the metal flange space to get a secondary seal to the pan adaptor. May need to back fill with tissue though...

[Newshound]

Sometimes vertical iron to iron joints were sealed by filling with molten lead (or perhaps solder).

But agree, plastic into iron is a doddle. I think I used gutter sealant too (on top of a tight packing of loo roll, ISTR)

[chris French]

Anyway, I really don't see how cutting out a section of CI pipe is going to be easier than sticking a bit of plastic into the old socket.

[chris French]

Yup, that was the sort of thing I had (without the neighbour), really was quite easy

[John Rumm]

like part number WC-F18S will poke in the end of the existing pipe and should make a good seal.

[John Rumm]

The traditional approach is to wind cord round the bottom of the new pipe section that is going into the socket - this is to make it wider and stop whatever you seal the gap with for falling down the pipe.

[Dean Heighington]

One BIG gotcha!... If you end up needing to cut any of the iron stack with a grinder... Make sure there are no cars anywhere near you or use protective sheets if there are. It cost me £350 once to have a Range Rover treated to remove iron filings which had melted down into the lacquer, if that had failed the next stop would have been a £?000 respray!!! And it was about 100ft away from where I was working! Still makes me weep to remember.

[ARWadsworth]

A nosey around a few neighbours gardens found this

?action=view&current=100_0625.jpghttp://s428.photobucket.com/albums/qq6/adamko2020/?action=view&current=100_0626.jpgI would prefer to replace the lead pipe and then if anything goes wrong the shit is on the outside:-)

[John Rumm]

Make sure its silicone grease so as not to attack/perish the "rubber"...

(but yup, I normally grease mine!)