dclynch
May 11, 2013, 09:13 AM
I'm helping my daughter buy a house and we have an affordable candidate, but the upstairs bath is clearly not up to code and I'm wondering if we can work around it.
The two-story house was built in 1960 with one full bath on the main floor vented with a 3 inch cast iron pipe through the roof. At some later time, a bath was added in a second floor dormer right above the original bath. There are no roof penetrations associated with the second floor bath and the 3 inch cast pipe is too low to be venting the newer bath. In addition, there is no p-trap under the lavatory!
The toilet works fine and the stall shower seems to drain well. If I fill the sink and let it drain quickly, the water in the shower drain pipe moves up and down. Flushing the toilet does not do this. I imagine they are draining the new bath through the original 3 inch stack, which I think invalidates the stack as a vent for the lower bath, but doesn't seem to really affect any functioning. It seems to me that if I put a p-trap under the lavatory with an AAV, I'll have a reasonable set up until we do major renovations, opening walls, etc.
Do you think this might work? Also, the house is in Mass and I'm not sure if AAVs are allowed.
The two-story house was built in 1960 with one full bath on the main floor vented with a 3 inch cast iron pipe through the roof. At some later time, a bath was added in a second floor dormer right above the original bath. There are no roof penetrations associated with the second floor bath and the 3 inch cast pipe is too low to be venting the newer bath. In addition, there is no p-trap under the lavatory!
The toilet works fine and the stall shower seems to drain well. If I fill the sink and let it drain quickly, the water in the shower drain pipe moves up and down. Flushing the toilet does not do this. I imagine they are draining the new bath through the original 3 inch stack, which I think invalidates the stack as a vent for the lower bath, but doesn't seem to really affect any functioning. It seems to me that if I put a p-trap under the lavatory with an AAV, I'll have a reasonable set up until we do major renovations, opening walls, etc.
Do you think this might work? Also, the house is in Mass and I'm not sure if AAVs are allowed.