Plumbing advise please!

[mathnerd]

My house has three full bathrooms, but only one fully functional one. The fully functional one is the master bath, so it's off limits to the kids. The other third floor bathroom has a working toilet and sinks, but the bathtub can't be used. The first floor bathroom has a working tub/shower, but the sink can't be used. This means the boys have to shower downstairs and then climb two flights of stairs to brush their teeth, and if they use the downstairs toilet, they have to huff up the stairs to wash their hands. I'm sure you can understand how this would get old fast.

Now for the actual problems. The downstairs sink doesn't work because it backs up. We're pretty sure we know where the problem is, and it's in the pipes that's pretty far away from the sink (about 40 feet) and under the only part of the house with a concrete slab (the rec room and the garage are on a slab while the rest of the house has a crawl space under it). We have a snake that's long enough to reach what appears to be the blockage, but it wiggles around and doesn't actually get the job done. I either need to get a snake that has a heavy core, or jack hammer up the rec room floor.

The problem with the shower/tub upstairs is that when it's used, water leaks onto the ceiling below it. I have no clue if the problem is that there's a small leak in the plumbing somewhere of if water is somehow getting behind the tile/under the tub. I also have no clue how to figure that out without ripping out the entire tub/shower, which is something I have the skills to do, but neither the time nor money to put it back together.

I'm hoping some of the handy types around here might have some advise for helping me to diagnose the upstairs bathroom, or clear the blockage in the downstairs bathroom plumbing with the tools I have. My budget is pretty tight. My plumbing experience is moderate. With a good set of directions, I can handle moderately difficult jobs and am pretty good at knowing when I'm in over my head and calling an actual plumber.

[AccountingDrone]

Hm, I think you are going to have to sacrifice the ceiling of the room under the leaky tub/shower - on the plus side, that will be way freaking cheaper to repair than a jackhammered floor. Sometimes the joints between the drain and the plumbing go wonky if kids have been jumping up and down in the tub. Whacked, I know - but kids are kids and do strange shit. I would get the basics tried before jackhammering up a floor. Or you could go for the money to hire Rotor Rooter in to drill out the drain, either repair is probably going to run $300-400 unfortunately, plumbing is not cheap if you are not personally a handyman type.

Honestly? If cash is that tight, you could always suck it up and let the sprogs use the master bath to get the complete ablutions done while you save up for a plumber for the sink or the money to get the repairs done to the shower [the replacement of the ceiling that needed to get dropped. Though depending on which wall the shower backs up upon, you could try simply going through that wall.] Saves repairing tiled walls.

[dalesys]

Privy.

That little shack out back that in summer's a hundred yards too near and in winter's a hundred yards too far. - The Dillards, "Old Blue"

[csquared]

The professionals will use a power snake to clear the plug on the sink.

The show may simply be the seal on the drain. That would be fixed from the shower and you would not have to take out the ceiling below.

However, if the shower has leaked for a while, you may want to open that ceiling. It could be full of mold.

[mathnerd]

My boyfriend lived in this house mostly by himself* for a little over 10 years. In that time, nobody used the upstairs shower, so I'm betting against mold. I think I might replace the drain and see if that solves the leak, and open up a small patch of the ceiling to inspect for mold.

*His daughters graduated from high school in 2003. I moved in with my boys this past autum. In between that he did have another girlfriend live with him for a few years, but her kids were already adults. She didn't use that shower either. Some of the issues with the house are only being discovered now because he simply didn't use most of the rooms in the house for all that time.

[wolfie]

First floor sink: I doubt if the problem is that far away. You say the tub drains properly (and you imply there's a toilet that works, since you say that if the kids use the downstairs toilet they need to climb 2 flights of stairs to wash their hands) - did your boyfriend actually run separate drains for the different fixtures? It's standard to combine the drains somewhere under the bathroom floor. When you ran the snake, did you actually stick it down the drain (usually sinks have some obstruction - mine has a pair of cross bars in the tailpipe - that would block a snake going down the drain), or did you remove the trap and stick the snake through the pipe that goes into the wall? If the latter, I'd say that the actual blockage is either in the trap or the tailpipe, and the "blockage" you found with the snake is a "T" fitting that the snake is coming in the "leg" of and can't manouver itself into either arm of the top.

3rd floor tub: You say you don't know whether the leak is in the plumbing or getting behind the tile/under the tub. Time to isolate the problem: CAREFULLY half-fill the tub with water, being sure not to splash any over the side, and let it sit for a day or so. Does it leak? The only "wet" seal is where the tub's drain is sealed to the tub itself, so you've found the culprit. Next, pull the plug. Do you have water going astray now? If so, the leak is in the tub drain, before it meets up with another drain (toilet or sink) which can be used without causing a leak. Neither? Then the problem is most likely poor sealing of the enclosure (tile, or caulking) causing splashed water to get behind the tub. You're probably going to need to sacrifice the ceiling below - the area of drywall (I'm assuming your boyfriend took the easy route rather than using plaster) which has got wet will have been damaged by the water, and the easiest way to get at the pipes (assuming it's a drain seal/pipe leak) is from below.

[mathnerd]

Wolfie, whoever built the house, then the subsequent addition, need to be located and shot. The original builder put a lot of money into things like flooring and cabinetry, but then skimped on plumbing and electrical (that's a whole different issue). The plumbing for the two upstairs bathrooms goes out a different way than the downstairs bathroom and the bar sink that's in the rec room (which also can't be used). When the addition was built, they threw a slab down, which covered the buried pipes. You are right in that this could be an intersection, but the snake does pull out some gunk, just not nearly enough to allow for free flowing drainage. My fear is that there's a blockage around a bend or intersection, which is why I mentioned busting up the floor. I wish I had a video equipped snake, but something like that is definitely not in the budget.

My other issue, which bf and I started talking about last night, is that the house was built in 1960, and has popcorn ceilings, which means the likelihood of asbestos is high. The ceiling that got wet when the upstairs shower was used is one of the bedrooms (there are four bedroom upstairs and one downstairs. I keep saying three floors, but it's actualy tri-level split with high ceilings, and rambles a lot.)

So the plan so far: I was just going to replace the drain upstairs and see what that does. I might do what you suggested, but I'm thinking that with 55 year old plumbing, the chances of the gasket or plumbers putty under that being dried out and/or cracked is high, and that a relatively easy and inexpensive repair. In the meantime, I'm going to get a sample of the popcorn ceiling and have it sent off for testing. I don't want to cut into the ceiling until I know what I'm dealing with. We have aporopriate safety gear to work with it a small amount (to get a sample) but before I go doing anything major, I want to know. If replacing the drain doesn't work, then I will do whatever I need to do to safely cut into that ceiling. (Not looking forward to having to hire an appropriate clean up crew).

I have zero plans of dealing with the electrical issues. I'm perfectly fine with any other household repair, even some big stuff, but electrical terrifies me.

Bf used less than a quarter of the house for over a decade, so the fact that there's a bunch of stuff that needs work is hardly surprising. Also on the list is a couple windows, at least one window screen, and a fussy burner on the stove (it doesn't ignite on its own...you have to turn the gas on and light it with a match or lighter. The other three burners are fine.). If I could afford it, I'd repaint as well, since not only is the paint old, but it's got ugly parts where I've repaired small holes. The only real safety issue, which was the handrails on the stairs, has been fixed.

[MoonCat]

Re: the burner, see if you can take it apart. It may just need cleaning. I've had that happen with stoves a lot, especially with the ones in front as we use those the most. Greasy stuff gets into the burner holes, especially if you've ever had something spill over while cooking, and heat hardens the gunk. You can use an old toothbrush to clean it, or you may need something small and pointy like a needle or a pin to really get in there.

If that doesn't fix the problem you may have a bad ignition switch.

[mathnerd]

The stove is original to the house, so 55 years old. It's actually a kick ass stove, and I adore it. I can deal with lighting it manually until I get some other stuff done. The one blessing here is that we have an identical stove in a closet downstairs that was in perfect working order when it was removed from bf's mother's house when she remodeled her kitchen a few years back.(that house and this house were built within a year of each other, though his parents bought theirs new, and bf didn't buy this one until the early 90's). If I need parts, I can just scavenge them from that stove. Sometimes his pack-rat tendencies come in handy.

[MoonCat]

Yeah, back then they made things to last

[dalesys]

Yeah, back then they made things to last

So... that's why I'm so damn old!

[pudddykat]

In my grandparents house there is an old Westinghouse fridge. similar to the one below.



Grandma joked she wanted to be buried in it. The dam thing outlived them both and is still happily running.

[JustaCashier]

Regarding the blocked drain; could a tree root be the culprit?

Mike

[mathnerd]

We figured that one out. That particular bathroom had not been used in a decade. The blockage is hardened sediment. Yippie. As for the other bathroom, we are discussing ripping the whole thing out and remodeling. It's something other than the drain itself so our choices are to go in through the asbestos ceiling below, go in through an outside wall, or rip it out.