Hello All,
I have a waste line in a downstairs bathroom that has collapsed under the ground. The only thing connected to this line is a toilet and small sink. I was wondering if I can cut the cast iron drain under the toilet in the crawl space and run a PVC elbow and 4" pipe from this to the other cast iron from the upstairs which is about 25' away in the same space. Will this work? What about the bottom portion of the pipe? Should this be capped off? Will waste spill into this dead piece of pipe where it ties into the main line in the back yard. I am just trying to figure out if there is a less expensive way of getting this bathroom up and running. If I need:confused: to have the collapsed line replaced then part of the blacktop driveway and sidewalk may have to come up. I am pretty inexperienced with this stuff but have read a lot of your posts on here and have saved a lot of messages for future reference. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, John:confused:

Hi John,

Let's see if I have this correct. You propose to leave the closet bend and cut the cast iron pipe connected to it and then convert to PVC. Or would you cut the closet bend out all together and replace the closet bend and the flange? I don't understand this question, "What about the bottom portion of the pipe? Should this be capped off? Will waste spill into this dead piece of pipe where it ties into the main line in the back yard."
What bottom of what pipe? You will be replacing the cast iron with PVC. Old pipe out new pipe in. Any "dead pipe" should be removed. John, you have the right idea, I'm just a little confused about how you're going to go about it. Bring me up to speed please. Regards, Tom