Cross-trade trainwreck from 40 years ago revealed during bathroom remodel

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crash_victim

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[sorry if this is posted in the wrong forum; saw "toilet" and headed straight in...]

A house chock full of septic surprises!

First (just after new drywall etc. was complete downstairs) we discovered the hard way that our lower fixtures were below the level of the local sewer manhole, with no backwater valve on the lateral (now there is :p).

Now I'm redoing the downstairs bathroom. Turning my attention to the soil pipe, I discovered that long ago several people involved in the construction of this house were either blind, drunk, or perhaps just blind drunk. Possible deaf, too, since none of them apparently spoke to each other, or at least were even aware that some bigger objective lay beyond their immediate concerns.

Below should be a couple of pictures of the mess in question. One shows a carpenters square laid inside the 4" ABS soil pipe, the other shows a penny in the foreground laid across the flush(!) seam of the slab and flange, with another penny across the pipe standing on the flange, on edge, not quite reaching the top of the flange. To all appearances the flange was actually embedded in the slab since I removed slab aggregate from the top of the flange while investigating this tragic situation.

perspective.jpgelevation.jpg

The soil pipe descends some 20" with the mistake still visible where it turns the corner to join the pipe (under and parallel with a wall) heading for the lateral.

I don't think I'm ready to destroy this village in order to save it so I don't want to excavate the monstrosity and fix it properly. I'm thinking of trying an Oatey Twist-n-Set to see if it'll couple up with the ABS. However, I'm not a plumber so I'm eager to hear of any other pragmatic suggestions about what to do!

Thanks!
 
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Cacher_Chick

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It might work, but if the floor is not both flat and level I wouldn't bother.

Cut out a 3'x3' section of concrete, fix the pipe, and then fix the floor so you can set a new flange on top of a nice level & flat section of concrete. Then the toilet will have a nice flat floor to sit on too.
 

crash_victim

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It might work, but if the floor is not both flat and level I wouldn't bother.

Amazingly, the floor is actually perfectly flat and level. In fact, going beyond that the room's walls are square and plumb; the house is not completely like a Picasso interpretation.

I'll give the Oatey gizmo a whirl and then escalate if need be. Getting the pipe plumb would involve going under the adjacent wall, so maybe I'm justified in thinking this is one of those rare cases where a hack might be defensible. If it wasn't for the wall issue I'd really prefer to do it right...

Thanks!
 
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