Peter D
New Member
Hi everyone...
I just ripped out a nearly 50 year old basement shower I built when I was still a 26 year old newbie. The base tray was formed out of high density, nicely sloping concrete poured directly onto the basement concrete floor. My arms still hurt from separating one from the other and there was certainly never a leak. The pan was tiled with the tile GLUED down! Never leaked either. Couldn’t get them off; one of the reasons to remove the entire pan. The simple brass floor drain, soldered to the builder installed copper drain pipe, was embedded in the high density concrete, no leaks there either. What finally went after all this time was the tiled walls; no concrete wallboard, no Schluter products...!
The shower drain, as roughed in by the builder, at the time was left rising out of the finished basement floor by about 6 inches, capped with a piece of sheet copper.
Given this presentation of the original rough in, I would today conclude that a trap was installed at the connection to the waste water plumbing (inaccessible under the concrete floor slab of the basement). Anyhow, as a newbie at the time, I went and tore up the concrete floor at the rough in stub and installed a copper pipe trap. Ever since, now and then, the water would pool in the shower until my size 13 foot would stomp on the drain to release a big air bubble more than likely hiding in a double trapped pipe.
So, the big question, since I’ve now removed the existing drain and trap and have a fairly good sized hole in the original basement floor to centre the drain in the new bigger shower, do you have an (inexpensive) idea about how to test the drain for that (hopefully existing) trap a good 8+ feet downstream from the shower drain? I was getting kind of tired of stomping on the drain for all and sundry users of the shower…
Peter
I just ripped out a nearly 50 year old basement shower I built when I was still a 26 year old newbie. The base tray was formed out of high density, nicely sloping concrete poured directly onto the basement concrete floor. My arms still hurt from separating one from the other and there was certainly never a leak. The pan was tiled with the tile GLUED down! Never leaked either. Couldn’t get them off; one of the reasons to remove the entire pan. The simple brass floor drain, soldered to the builder installed copper drain pipe, was embedded in the high density concrete, no leaks there either. What finally went after all this time was the tiled walls; no concrete wallboard, no Schluter products...!
The shower drain, as roughed in by the builder, at the time was left rising out of the finished basement floor by about 6 inches, capped with a piece of sheet copper.
Given this presentation of the original rough in, I would today conclude that a trap was installed at the connection to the waste water plumbing (inaccessible under the concrete floor slab of the basement). Anyhow, as a newbie at the time, I went and tore up the concrete floor at the rough in stub and installed a copper pipe trap. Ever since, now and then, the water would pool in the shower until my size 13 foot would stomp on the drain to release a big air bubble more than likely hiding in a double trapped pipe.
So, the big question, since I’ve now removed the existing drain and trap and have a fairly good sized hole in the original basement floor to centre the drain in the new bigger shower, do you have an (inexpensive) idea about how to test the drain for that (hopefully existing) trap a good 8+ feet downstream from the shower drain? I was getting kind of tired of stomping on the drain for all and sundry users of the shower…
Peter
Last edited:
