sewer pipe vs schedule 40

My plumber is in the process of replacing my sewer connection to the city sewer and wants to use a turquoise colored sewer pipe. It seems very flimsy and thin walled. All the plumbing work I have done in the past is with white schedule 40 PVC. Does this seem like the right material?

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Reply to
bmancanfly
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Sch 40 PVC is rated for pressure applications i.e. supply lines, the sewer pipe (Sch 20?) is not (or very low pressure). Since most sewer lines are gravity drain with essentially zero pressure, the lighter weight sewer pipe is appropriate for them.

Reply to
Pete C.

bmancanfly had written this in response to

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------------------------------------- Pete C. wrote:

The total run from the house to the street is about thirty feet. It seems like for a couple of more bucks I can have a much more substantial pipe using schedule 40. Esp. considering tree roots, shifting ground, whatever. But I guess I'm wrong.

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Reply to
bmancanfly

Around these here parts, i.e., Philadelphia - PVC is not allowed for sewer pipes (sanitary and storm drain lines) ... only cast iron, with bell housings appropriately leaded in, except for the adaptors needed to mate with the existing old lines.

Joe

Reply to
J O E

I'd want the heavier pipe, sooner or later something heavy will drive over it. I used to have an semi exposed schedule 40 rain water drain, I drove my F350 over it all the time, often loaded to capacity.

Reply to
Eric in North TX

The unions are keeping the city behind. Unions would not install anything but copper for water either when I lived there. Chicago electrical is similar in that they cannot use Romex.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Lead?

But what about the children?

Reply to
HeyBub

Talking about cast iron sewer pipes here - not copper potable water feed lines.

Joe

Reply to
J O E

He was being facetious, about how the word 'lead' sets people off like 'asbestos' or 'PCB' or 'DDT' does. (Yes, we need to be careful with all of them, but it isn't like they are radioactive or something...)

But back to sewer feed lines- I'd take thickwall schedule 40 PVC over cast iron with potted joints any day. PVC is a lot slicker on the inside, so fewer clogs. And with fewer joints to come loose from frost heave or tree roots, harder for outside disruptions to take place. PVC beats orangeburg or clay sewer tile as well. I've never been impressed with the thin greenish stuff- that seems more suited for drains in asphalt parking lots, where you expect it to get dug up every 20 years. Any application where you can double expected lifespan for a small upcharge, is a no-brainer for me. Any buried pipe, labor is most of the cost.

Sounds like a code office or city council that doesn't like modern advances, either out of fear or desire to maintain a steady workload for plumber's guild. It is right up there with some cities requiring residential electrical to all be in conduit. Sometime back in history, it may have briefly made sense, because the then-new technology of plastic pipe or romex was not yet trustworthy, and what they were requiring was better than the previous common technology. But codes need to be a living thing, and get updated as new tech becomes available and reliable.

-- aem sends...

Reply to
aemeijers

But its buried underground where it will leech into the water supply!

We're all gonna die!

At least some folks who make brass fittings for an air compressor think so. I just got some recently that came with a warning: "The brass on these items contains lead which has been show to be harmless unless eaten repeatedly by children whose parents are remiss in supervision." or words to that effect.

Reply to
HeyBub

I'm sure you are talking about SDR35 pipe, though I would call it green.

Tell him you would be happy to pay the difference, that you would just prefer schedule 40. Now you need to decide if you will allow him to use foam core PVC - about half the weight. I'm sure he doesn't care other than the cost. He may be using gasketed SDR35 pipe and your municipality may require it.

Reply to
DanG

OK, then what about the fishies downstream? When I sold my house in Philly (1981) is still had the original late '40s lead water main. Thousands of houses were built with them. Somehow, we survived.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Ask city or county inspecter for code. Jerry

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Reply to
Jerry - OHIO

Interesting. How long does cast iron last when buried? All our sewer lines here in WI are clay pipe. Might last hundreds of years.

JK

Reply to
Big_Jake

We had clay/cement pipes. Last year the city replaced the 8" concrete pipe with 10" PVC. And they did it without digging up the old pipe!

I thought it was nifty. The put a metal cone on the new pipe and rammed it through the old pipe which was buried about 8' down. The ram fractured the old pipe as the new made its way down the length.

Then they came through with an itty-bitty back hoe*, dug down to the homeowner's connection, cut a hole in the new PVC line and slapped on a connector to afix the individual drain. They then filled the hole, re-sodded the yard, and repaired the fence.

I was impressed.

Reply to
HeyBub

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