Just looked at a property I want to buy and flip. During inspection, two red flags for me. About a 40' run of cast iron drain pipe is rusted and leaking. All radiators need to be moved to maximize space.

Q1: My question is: Is the job of replacing the cast iron to tough for a DIY'er like me? Also can I run PVC underground? If I need to pro help, what's a ball park cost?

Q21: Other than re-routing supply/return lines for radiators, is there anything else complex to moving radiators?

I don't have experience with moving radiators, but as for replacing the bad drain that's visible, that's not too tough of a job for a diy'er - as long as you can get to it easily enough.

And the only difficulty with running underground is the digging. I recently shopped around (Excavating, in the yellow pages) for a drainage digging project and the best I found was $1200 do dig a trench 60' long and 8' deep.

I had to go 8' as I was replacing existing line.

Hey Rodjos,

Q1: My question is: Is the job of replacing the cast iron to tough for a DIY'er like me? Also can I run PVC underground? If I need to pro help, what's a ball park cost?

I would convert to 4" PVC for the entire run. You may do this with a 4" No-Hub cast iron to PVC band. Then it's a easy job to glue the pipes togather.

Q21: Other than re-routing supply/return lines for radiators, is there anything else complex to moving radiators?

Nothing that I know of. This would appear to be a simple of just extending the lines.
Good luck, Tom

Thanks for the advice. The inherent cost of breaking the sidewalk to get to tie in the drain makes me want to just replace only the visibly damaged parts of the cast iron w/ no hub connectors and pvc. Does this make me a bad person for not wanting to break my budget by digging all the way to the sidewalk and under my crawl space? What's the likelihood that the pipe past my front walls are also rusted out? (Maybe I really don't want this answer) :)

Chances are the cast iron's the same under the side walk but If you don't wish to jackhammer up your sidewalk it's worth the risk. Besides you could always tunnel under the side walk if you really had to. Cheers, Tom

There's no sense guessing on a big job like that. If it ain't broke (drains fine) then don't fix it. :D