A real puzzle - how to connect shower and sink drains with so little room

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dtraster

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I probably posted to the wrong thread... I posted it in the remodel forum instead of here. It has the same title as this post. I have a problem connecting a sink and shower drain in my bathroom. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
 

hj

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Not a lot of information to give an answer. WHAT is your problem, and the answer would probably depend on WHERE the sink and shower are located relative to each other, and where is the drain?
 

Cacher_Chick

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Post some pictures or drawings of how the fixtures and existing plumbing is so that we have some idea of what you are dealing with.
 

dtraster

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Sorry about that. I posted this in the remodeling forum.

First, I bought this house in February of 2012, so none of this is my doing!!
With that clarified, I have two problems (that I’m aware of) at this point. I’ll start by stating the problems and then provide details. First, I don’t really want to have to cut the notch in the concrete basement wall another 6†deeper to accommodate a double wye, but that’s doable. The bigger problem is how to connect the drain lines from the shower and the lavatory into the drain and comply with the 2006 international code.

I’m completely redoing the main guest bathroom in the house. There is a master bath, a half bath upstairs, and another half bath in the basement. The photos and diagrams show the main guest bathroom.
Previous set up. The toilet was against the wall. It drained into 3†ABS and then into a 4†cast iron sanitary tee at the top of the basement wall. The person (notice I didn’t say “plumber.â€) who installed it cut through floor joists and generally botched it up.

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The only support for the floor under the toilet was two pieces of plywood screwed into the header. The toilet had a very slow leak that had evidently been going on for quite a while because the screws were badly corroded.
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I have notched the concrete wall so that the lower sanitary tee is exposed and will be removed.

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I had planned to use a double sanitary tee but the toilet is against the wall so I can’t get 18†of developed
pipe length between the closet elbow and a double sanitary tee as required by the code and I can’t move
the toilet to the other side of the room.

But I can use a double wye with 45-degree ells. This leaves the elevation of the existing
line from the half bath alone but will drop the inlet from the main guest bathroom about 9-10â€. In order
to accommodate the double wye, I’m going to have to cut the notch in the concrete another 6†deeper
but at that location, the wall is thicker… 9†everywhere else but there’s a pilaster poured in the wall on
the crawlspace side at that point. That's a problem but not insurmountable.

Here's the main problem: I need to connect the drain from the shower and from the lavatory into this drain. I can't reduce the the size of the double wye to 3" because of the 4" line coming from the half bath.
So I don’t have room for a sanitary tee between the 45-degree ell and the closet bend. I don’t have
room for a wye on top of the double wye or between the double wye and the closet bend. I could put it
below the double wye, but that means breaking out even more concrete. So I don’t think any of these
three options work.

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The code allows quarter bends with side inlets, so I could use a closet bend with a side inlet but I
understand that they are not acceptable in some jurisdictions, which leads me to believe that may not be
the best answer – although at this point I’m not sure what choice I have.
Any suggestions would be deeply appreciated. At this point, the only option I can see is to cut the notch deeper and put a wye for the shower and sink below the double wye. :-(
 

dtraster

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Having put this together, I think my options are to check to make sure that I can't find a fitting that fits on top of the double wye for the sink and the shower... I'm concerned that there won't be enough fall from across the bathroom where the sink will be. And, assuming that there's not enough room, then I'll just have to make the notch deeper...
 

Terry

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dtraster

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:) You're a master of understatment!!! As you can tell, the sanitary tee on its side wasn't the only problem.

You say "The new toilets don't work well with double fixture fittings"... So is the double wye a problem even though it's permitted? I want to do this right!!

The plumbing tips are really helpful. Thanks.
 
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