Identify this sludge

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I was cutting out an old unused drain line for a tub. It was a 2" line with a 2" elbow to a dedicated vent (straight to the roof, no other tie-ins).

I was shocked to see the pipe half clogged ABOVE the tub drain, all the way to the elbow (about 1' of travel). See pic. For reference, house is almost 40 years old and this is probably the first time this has been opened.

Any idea what this is? It looks like drywall mud and has no odor (thankfully). The vertical part of the elbow looks clean, I'm just curious if this is normal or something to worry about.

Thanks,
Anthony
2017-01-14 09.41.05.jpg
 

Dj2

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Your guess could be correct, or it could be something else.

One time I had to cut a kitchen drain which was 95% blocked. There was no question what was in the gunk. I ended up replacing a 6 ft section.
 
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Yeah, it's weird. The only way into that section of pipe is the roof vent pipe. I guess that's 40 years of "rain". Would not have thought our rain had that much mineral content.

One thing that didn't help -- I found out the holes for that 2" pipe to the stack had basically no slope for that part of the run. So water would have just sat there instead of trickling down (not that there was anything to really scour that pipe anyway). I just spent an hour remeasuring and redrilling the holes to give that some slope. So much for reusing that drain run. I guess better to find out now while I can fix it.
 

Stuff

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If I turn the picture upside-down it looks like that piece was connecting a horizontal wye right off the trap. And then a foot until a 90º and up out the roof? If so that pipe was not above the tub drain but in line with it. Any backwash would leave gunk in the horizontal part that would have no way to flush out. What you see is evidence of why the code wants vents to be vertical until 6" above flood level.
 
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Better image:
2017-01-14 09.16.53.jpg


Bottom of the pic is that fitting, cut on both sides of the wye and the next joist bay down. The sludge is completely on the vent side of the wye all the way to the 90 (barely off the bottom of the picture there). Just odd.

Those pipes are level from that first joist below the Porter Cable case all the way off the bottom of the pic. Thankfully I had enough clearance to properly relocate the holes. The pipe does slope down just fine to the stack above that on the pic. Not sure what they were thinking 40 years ago.
 

Jadnashua

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Some contractors will use the drain to clean out their buckets after tiling or mudding the walls...the stuff can and does build up in the pipes if that is done.
 

JRC3

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I remodeled a master bath last month that had an odd buildup in the closet bend that I'd never seen before. The pic doesn't quite show but at the end of the bend it gets even thicker restricting down to about 2" or less. The build up was dried at this point and was almost like chipping drywall compound. My guess is it something the homeowner ate or some dietary supplement consumed on a regular basis. It had no odor and if it hadn't been after a toilet you'd not known it came from there. I wish I could've asked the homeowner some questions but would never ask. It looked like hard milk chocolate.




EEWWWW!
 

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Jadnashua

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Maybe the second most abused waste disposal unit for careless drywall finishers and lazy tillers is to dump things into the toilet...self-cleaning! At least at the surface!
 
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