Furnace condensation line connected with putty?!?!?

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DIYMattPDX

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So I'm remodeling my laundry room and diagnosing a leak in the wall behind the washer/dryer. It turns out the condensation line from the furnace (1/2" pvc) was connected to the cast iron drain pipes with some kind of putty? It was no longer even connected and this must have been leaking back there for 20 years or more.

As I'm replacing the drain pipe to glue in a proper connection... I notice the drain pipe rotates in my hands easily. So I opened up ANOTHER wall to find a 90 degree connection, at least one side again held together with only putty. The other side seemed to be OK. So I cleaned out the putty and glued the one side.

Then I investigated the connections closer to the furnace... all putty! It seemed to be dried out because as soon as I touched it, the putty fell off. I ran the furnace and all those connections appear to be damp, but not dripping yet. I guess I will have to glue all those connections and also open up another wall with a 90 degree turn to make sure that one is ok.

What kind of sick person would do something like this? The house was built in 1980, I'm positive they had some kind of PVC glue available back then?!?
 

DIYMattPDX

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And here is the original problem caught in mid-drip.. the white PVC pipe originally connected to the cast iron drain with some kind of putty...
 

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John Gayewski

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Thanks, so that's yet another thing they screwed up on. Maybe codes were different 40 years ago. Still wondering if the putty thing was a standard way to do things then or not.
I'm gonna say not, but I wasn't a plumber 40 years ago. I wasn't even a sparkle in my parents eye.
 

JohnCT

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The size isn't really the problem, the implementation most certainly is. I can sort of understand how a dunce might use putty instead of solvent glue, assuming he was green and left unsupervised, but how in the heck does this pass inspection???

John
 
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Hey, wait a minute.

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