h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I haved just this morning had the most absolutely brilliant idea since, well, my last absolutely brilliant idea. It was one of those true moments.

My problem is this. http://www.sewerhistory.org/grfx/components/pipe-orng1.htm

Orangeburg pipe was one of those great cost-saving products that contractors liked to use decades ago because it lasted just long enough for the original home owners to be dead and gone, thus bequeathing the problem to some poor stranger they wouldn't give a toss about even if they did know them.

Yes, I have orangeburg pipe under my house. Yes it has deteriorated. Yes I have my washing machine backing up in the bathtub in the original bathroom. (Not a pleasant thing.) And yes, the broken bits are under the concrete slab of my screened in back porch/patio/Florida room/soon to be greenhouse/whatever.

I have fought the drains in this house for years. Less than a year after moving in, we rented a backhoe, bribed the Bearded Cousins with a full cooler and all the steak they could eat and replaced the entire drain from the back of the house to the sewer, all 140 feet of it. That helped a great deal, but the real problem has always been under the house, where you can't get to it without a really major excavation project.

Three months ago I got estimates to replace the orangeburg under the house with proper pvc pipe. The cheapest one was for $4600. So I've been biting my nails and trying to figure out where to get $4600. I managed to patch the roof well enough for it to last another 5 years or so, so there's a bit of money in the roof fund, but I am loathe to use it for anything else. The new roof is going to cost a bundle and I'm still in the process of saving the money for it.

Going back a couple of paragraphs, did you notice that I said 'original' bathroom? About 30 years after the house was built, the owner converted the garage into a bedroom with bath. The drain from said bath is completely separate from the original drain, other than that it ties into the drain outside the house. It has pvc pipe, it's own cleanout and doesn't give me any trouble.

No one uses the shower or tub in the 'original' bathroom unless I have overnight guests, which is very seldom now that Lady C is gone. The toilet in there works fine as long as a lot of water isn't put into the drain from the tub. The kitchen drains, which meet the original bathroom drains under the aforementioned slab, run along the back wall of the house and are relatively easy to access, compared to the bathroom pipes.

Sooooooooooooooo, (and why didn't any of the plumbers over the years think of this?) why not cap off the kitchen drain so it doesn't flow into the bathroom drain and tie it into the newer drain which is only 6 feet away? This way no one would have to dig under the flipping house or break up the slab. The original bathroom will still drain the way it always has and is used so little that it will probably last a long time just the way it is. The problem has to be at or near the point where the pipes from the two rooms join together.

I'm thinking I can probably get it done for $500. Heck, the BCs could probably manage it for the cost of the pipe, some beef and a cooler of beer.

I can't wait to tell BC1 this idea. He isn't the only one who can come up with hillbilly solutions.

Well practical solutions are what hillbillies are sometimes good at. It might not be aesthetic, but if it works and doesn't break the bank go for it! I know that roofing and plumbing problems are the householder's biggest concerns. One of the best things about renting spaces is that spiders, and those things are somebody else's problem and bottom line concerns.

I await proceedings with bated breath. (Drains terrify me).

Sounds like a solution to me. Perhaps the plumbers disn't want to think of a less costly solution?

One of the things that came out when I had that problem with a spring in the garden (from a burst pipe) was that one of the neighbour's new extension, with concrete floor, had been built over their water supply pipes.