I bought a house in Michigan from a guy who should never have been given a Home Depot card. One thing after another...
My question is about the bathroom in the basement. There is a toilet and a sink that seem to have been put in when the house was built, no troubles. The shower stall that was here when I bought the house was rigged. He ran PVC from under the base of the shower about 2 feet across into a floor drain. He didn't have a P trap on the shower and it began to smell bad. The pipe was not hard plumbed into the drain , just merely positioned above it. I tore the whole shower out and am now at square one. My question is this. Could I simply position the new shower directly over the drain and directly plum into the drain. When I look down the floor drain I see water, so I believe that there is in fact a P trap in the concrete. The water is about 12 to 18 inches down. Would this be too deep for the trap to stop the smell or would it work? Also, would I need to vent?
I have a wife that is on my butt to get this done. Any info would be nice. Thanks Myke

"My question is this. Could I simply position the new shower directly over the drain and directly plum into the drain. When I look down the floor drain I see water, so I believe that there is in fact a P trap in the concrete. The water is about 12 to 18 inches down. Would this be too deep for the trap to stop the smell or would it work? Also, would I need to vent?"

What you had and what you propose is called a indirect waste and it doesn't have to have a separate trap since the floor drain already has one and you don't have to vant a indirect waste. With a indirect waste you won't have to trap your shower, just run to the floor drain. If the drain smells a bit run bleach through it.

Thanks for the help, that makes things easy for me...