Thoughts on how this old home was plainsong with this method?

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100 year old house, but high end for its time. 2 full baths on the 2nd floors, one 1/2 Bath on the first floor.

The layout was 4” cast iron, servicing all the bathrooms and fixtures, with no venting except where the waste line comes into the basement, ties in below a 4” vent stack that goes to the roof. No vent connections anywhere except here, in the basement. Was that legal then, and is that legal now? Most fixture connections were lead pipes, not steel or cast iron if that makes a difference.

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John Gayewski

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If there was truly only one vent and no other pipes connected to it then no it wasn't legal. The lavs at a minimum would need a vent. Not to mention other sinks.

Still even today just becuse something is "high end" doesn't mean they hired qualified plumbers. Sometimes even today I see very high end homes with horrible plumbing. A lot of times the plumber just says "yeah we can do that" with no regard for how plumbing actually works.
 
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If there was truly only one vent and no other pipes connected to it then no it wasn't legal. The lavs at a minimum would need a vent. Not to mention other sinks.

Still even today just becuse something is "high end" doesn't mean they hired qualified plumbers. Sometimes even today I see very high end homes with horrible plumbing. A lot of times the plumber just says "yeah we can do that" with no regard for how plumbing actually works.
In another forum some were saying that if the drain line comes all the way down and ties into the vent stack below the lowest fixture, that is allowed? It didn’t make sense to me but I think that’s what they were going for here?

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Terry Love's example of two story plumbing
 

Terry

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The City of Philadelphia has the oldest known model plumbing code in the country dating back to June 30, 1885. Since the inception of the Philadelphia Plumbing Code, one of the main characteristics and theories has been the single stack method of waste and vent.

 

wwhitney

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Since the inception of the Philadelphia Plumbing Code, one of the main characteristics and theories has been the single stack method of waste and vent.
Right, but that would require each waste stack to extend through the roof to a vent. And there would be no point in have a separate vent stack that attaches only to the building drain at the bottom.

Cheers, Wayne
 

Terry

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Right, but that would require each waste stack to extend through the roof to a vent. And there would be no point in have a separate vent stack that attaches only to the building drain at the bottom.

Cheers, Wayne

I have never plumbed for a single stack before. And that was just a quote I found. He mentions no vent, which makes it seem like it was designed before any plumbing codes in that area. It didn't make it right, or function correctly. There are things I see in the olden days of Seattle that didn't work well either.

I remember my mother saying that she helped her father, a lawyer, to add electrical wiring to their home. No more kerosene lamps everywhere.
 

John Gayewski

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My favorite on the topic of old plumbing is sand bedding for underground piping. Every old timer swears sand is, not only the best, but necessary. The only pipe I've ever fixed due to sagging (and on many occasions) was bedded with sand.

Sand is not a structural fill material. It cannot be compacted to its fullest without gobs and gobs of water. So much water in fact that a mechanical tamper is slushing around throwing sandy water everywhere and even then it's usually not enough water.

If you can't tell I don't like sand in anything I'm building, and it's a subject of debate with me and other plumbers, lol.

Most professional designers/ engineers /architectural firms won't let you use sand anymore.
 

Jadnashua

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If the drain lines are large enough, you may get by with only one vent for the system as a very large drain line is unlikely to end up full, so it would be hard to suction a trap out. But, it's much safer and reliable to have each trap vented to today's standards, especially as things get modified over the years.
 

Terry

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If the drain lines are large enough, you may get by with only one vent for the system as a very large drain line is unlikely to end up full, so it would be hard to suction a trap out. But, it's much safer and reliable to have each trap vented to today's standards, especially as things get modified over the years.
And yet a 3" drain to a toilet isn't large enough to prevent water from being slopped out of a bowl when an opposing toilet is flushed.
 
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