*clears throat*

[TheOriginalJames]

Well, as you all know I bought this house. Well, in accordance with my luck and my lack of understanding of fucking everything...

something goes wrong - yes, it truley is always something.

My 4" cast iron sewer drain pipe leading from upstairs to the basement and into the sewer connection to the city is leaking.

It's a 4" cast iron pipe in 5 foot sections put together in 1927. There are female "bells" at the end of each pipe which are welded together with molten iron and sealed forever.

Well, on this vertical run directly below the bell that is adjacent to the ceiling of my first floor, there is a leak. A bad leak. I use any upstairs plumbing and it leaks.


Which leads me to why if I HAD hair, I'd be pulling it right now.

My dad tells me to get a piece of equipment that I can wrap around the pipe which is essentially a chain with a carbide cutting tip on it.

So today after work I stopped by;

Home Depot x2
Lowes
Harbor Freight
Menards
and no less than two Do-it Best hardware stores

Brian calls me bored and offers to stop by Sears and the other Lowe's in town.

NOBODY carries a cast iron chain/rope pipe cutter. No one.

So I stop by my apt. grab about 5-6 boxes and lug them down to the house, unload em and head to Rack n' Helens (a bar) to see my dad to tell him. Well I wander in and he proceeds to tell me that no one will carry them since everything is PVC now... and that I should go to Taylor Rental in the morning to RENT A DAMN PIPE CUTTER.

I mean... seriously, isn't this information important enough to TELL ME BEFORE I RUN AROUND TOWN!??

I can't fucking breathe my chest is so sore, the muscle I pulled in 05 is SORE, my ankle hurts, and my damn head hurts from my last job today.

To top it off, I was called a procrastinator in dealing with the house by my dad because I haven't gotten much done, which is absolute BULLSHIT.

I mean, isn't it a little bit ironic that I get called a procrastinator after he neglects to provide me with an important piece of information saving me time and money? I wasted probably 2 gallons of gas in my car tonight thanks to that.


/stressed-to-all-fuck-and-back-rant


Now I'd like to take this opportunity to tell BodyDroppedNikes, THANK YOU. You listened to me bitch and whine on the phone earlier, and you offered your time and money to help me look for this pipe cutter. I've known this guy for 6-7 years and he's always been the guy you can talk to who doesn't judge or make random comments like a jackass - which is more than I can say for the friends I've had since 4th grade.

The night I broke my pinky after getting into a fight with my dad, I was at his place talking to him and the guy sat there and listened, offered me to stay at his place so I wouldn't have to go home.

If you ever want a friend - I tell you what, THIS guy is the friend to have.

Thank ya Brian.

/mushy nonsense.

 

[BaggedSplash]

awww thanks James. i appreciate the compliments. its what friends are for bro. hell you hooked me up with a car for cheap, damn near got me from getting arrested because of a license plate that was crooked and hell youve put with me for all these years. friends do that type of shit for each other.

 

[lemon]

haha - james and brian are getting mushy!

*runs*

 

[Tim]

Ok, maybe I can help here... Your cast iron pipes are fit together with lead and okum packed into the bell end. What the plumbers did was dry fit the pipes together, pack the okum into the joint (a fiber) and poured moulten lead into the joint to seal it up. The okum was only used to keep the lead from pouring all the way down the pipe.
Your pipes are old and they tend to rot from the inside out, so even pipes that look like they are in good shape may be half rotten in the inside. This will sometimes cause leaks, but usually they will leak at the joints first. If your cast iron drain pipes are rotten on the inside, it will crush when you go to cut it instead of breaking off clean like the cutter will do with a new pipe. If you are looking to remove 1 or more sections and you don't need to cut it, then cast iron pipe breaks apart very easily with a hammer, it will shatter like glass with a few hits.

If you need to make a clean cut for a fernco fitting and you know that you are only going to get one chance (like in a tight spot) then use a saw-zall with an abrasive blade... actually 3-4 blades for one cut. But you won't crush the pipe, that you can't fix, you must replace it then.

If you can access the cast iron, then your best bet is to bust it all out and replace it with PVC. It's a few more dollars now, but it will keep you from tearing walls/ceilings apart later to fix another leak. Because if it's leaking now, the chances are good that it will only get worse later somewhere else.

 

[TheOriginalJames]

haha - james and brian are getting mushy!

*runs*

Right now, with my mood and how shitty I feel, it's just not the time for that.

and yeah Tim, everything you just mentioned is something that I'm looking into when I can get a chance to get up there to replace it.

There's no way to get a sawzall blade to the pipe. It's directly between two load bearing studs in the wall. Had I remembered to take pictures I could show you.

The only thing that's going to get to it is this chain cutter.

 

[Tim]

If you don't have room for a saw-zall blade, then you won't have room for a chain cutter. Those carbide chains are pretty fat and you have to be able to rotate the chain to cut the pipe once you tighten it up. It's the rocking back and forth of the chain that scores the pipe and breaks it at the score with pressure.

Cast iron pipe is a real bitch to work... I usually just break the bad section out and replace it with some PVC and fernco fittings.

 

[TheOriginalJames]

Well, according to the several people I've already talked to about this, the chain is the only thing that will work.

I'm not hammering it until it falls or breaks. I don't feel like digging cast iron chunks out of everything when I'm done. I need a clean cut to reattach a 4" pvc back to.

 

[lemon]

try replacing clay pipes...

 

[TheOriginalJames]

The biggest problem is the room I have to work with. I'll be on a ladder hunched through some ceiling studs sawing through this. A sawzall just won't fit at the correct angles to get it to cut straight. All plumbing people I've talked to said my dad was probably correct, a power tool against an 80 year old piece of pipe will just shatter it.

 

[Tim]

well good luck with the chain cutter... just trying to help.

 

[TheOriginalJames]

I know you are. I appreciate it.

 

[ouachiski]

I know what ur dealing with james, I have done my fair share of remodeling of old houses and the plumbing just kills me. I just have to let someone else deal with it cause I just hate it. I would rather rewire a house from top to botom than deal with a leaky old cast iron pipe.

 

[Homer]

James did this just pop up , did you know you had this problem when you got the house , was the house checked out before you bought it .:confused

 

[Veronica]

im sorry that you are having such a bad day. I wish there was something I could do to make it better.

I know absolutely NOTHING about pipe cutters, so Im not help there.. As for the listening part.. Im good at that. You are welcome to call me and complain/gripe/whatever.

 

[TheOriginalJames]

it had been leaking for a while, but it wasn't until I had the water turned on that we found out about it.

 

[BaggedSplash]

i helped James move some stuff from his apartment to his house today. i let him carry the light stuff because his back (pulled back muscle???) and chest were hurting him. i had to get after him tho because he tried to lift a heavy box when his back was hurting. i guess im a good friend,,.,,

 

[TheOriginalJames]

It wasn't that heavy. I didn't pull anything, it's just sore as shit.

 

[Homer]

it had been leaking for a while, but it wasn't until I had the water turned on that we found out about it.

i'm just wondering if you can't make them pay for the repairs even if you have to take them to small clames , i have heard of it being done when things like this were hidden. ps if you plan on living there along time like over 10 years i'd replace the whole pipe.

 

[TheOriginalJames]

Take who to the court? The house was foreclosed on and it was owned by the bank. I don't think the previous owners told the bank about it.

 

[Homer]

sorry i didn't know that . just trying to help.