Cast iron sewer pipe fittings

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pishta

pishta

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I found a crack in the bottom of a 2" cast iron service Y, (at single end) and I need to patch or cut out and replace with PVC and rubber connectors under the house. How are these joined? Are they threaded or is there a mastic poured into the union for a watertight fit? The location sucks, right next to a pier, it has about 1/2 inch below it until concrete and there are 3 of these suckers daisy chained together. Mine is the last one to the run the street. Im thinking a rubber patch held on with a metal sleeve and pipe clamped. Thats where my rodent problem started, standing water under the house, but only a dirty rat would drink that ****. (No brown water, only grey sink/dishwasher and washing machine drainage.)

Y.jpg
 
On my old house they were packed between the pipe joints with what was called 'oakum'(sp) then leaded. A proceed similar (barely) to soldering. If you have one leaking more may soon follow. They are old. I don't believe these were used much since the early 1950's. I have no other details to offer. Hope that helps.
Yote
 
Can you clean the area enough so that its dry and clean? Then put JB Weld 2 part epoxy in the crack,cover it with a patch like you said,and clamp it? Hopefully the crack doesn't run down into the concrete or it will be a waste of time too bad you couldn't open the top of the "Y" because then you could run a sleeve inside to continue the run.
 
A few years back I had to fix a leak under "mom's house. Turned out it was clay pipe weeping tile from the 50's or so. Anyway, short of replacement and a major undertaking, I used "Mighty putty"' That stuff is amazing! I had never used it before, but I am very impressed with it.
 
More---- if you can , I would recommend replacing all of the cast with PVC 'under the houseat least'.
Cast iron pipes can rust through. Mine also had multiple pinholes that were weeping ,not at the joints and no cracks. Yours may be near the end of its serviceability.
Yote
 
I used a stainless sleeve with rubber lining to splice PVC to cast soil pipe. Worked great.

Then again, (Lol) are you ready for this..................................
 
That lead and oakum is nearly impossible to get out sometimes,,,and when(if) you get that section out,,even chain snapping it out, you run the risk of the whole damn thing coming down into the basement like a periscope going down. Being a sewer line, Its not under pressure,,and even so, drains are only tested to 25psi,,,so based on the pain in the *** factor, and the diy factor,,,i would jb weld it then purchase some of that rubber stretch repair tape. Its not adhesive,,but super stretchy,,,and you pull tension on it as you wrap it around the repair,,blue monster makes it,,im sure others do too,,,but it works amazingly good.
 
You can seal it, but you will be doing it again elsewhere in a year. I have a cast iron section in the scrap pile right now that looks like it was cut with a laser. Has a slight slope in the line and a running toilet kept it wet for years.... And it rusted right through.
 
Yeah, setting rat traps I noticed a big mud piddle, then I crawled back and fouND standing water. O crap...I told wife to run sink and I heard the water leaking out the bottoM so I felt under there and almost pushed my finger into the pipe, makING the hole 2x bigger than it stared but I did get it back to some solid metal. That's when I stuffed some rubber in there and duct taped it. I'll wait a few more days so the lake subsides down there, it's already soaked down to just mud now. Ill have to get eyes on it again to determine if I can cut that y out and replace it with PVC. House was built 1951. I have some mighty putty but it's hard as a rock now. I was going to epoxy the rubber patch and clamp it. All ready found a 2" rubber union that will work perfectly if I can get it under that pipe. It's almost sitting on a concrete pier or it made a stalagmite there.
 
Do it right cut it out (rent a soil pipe cutter or us an angle grinder with a thin cut off wheel) and replace it with Pvc and some fernco’s. Just cut above and below the cast wye by 6”-8” so you can glue a piece of pipe in bell of the pvc wye that way you will have a common outside diameter for the fernco’s to slide onto. Anything else is just a temporary fix. If it was me i would start replacing as much of the old cast iron pipe as you can get to.
 
pishta said:
I found a crack in the bottom of a 2" cast iron service Y, (at single end) and I need to patch or cut out and replace with PVC and rubber connectors under the house. How are these joined? Are they threaded or is there a mastic poured into the union for a watertight fit? The location sucks, right next to a pier, it has about 1/2 inch below it until concrete and there are 3 of these suckers daisy chained together. Mine is the last one to the run the street. Im thinking a rubber patch held on with a metal sleeve and pipe clamped. Thats where my rodent problem started, standing water under the house, but only a dirty rat would drink that ****. (No brown water, only grey sink/dishwasher and washing machine drainage.)

View attachment 1715125102
Click to expand...
It`s either a lead joint(lead and oakum) or a push gasket (neopreme rubber), u should be able to tell by looking at it. If there is pipe on each side of it, w/ nofiittings directly in it, u can cut the pipe w/ asawzall and use the no hub bands to put it back together? cheaper than cantex/ coretex/ or what ever their called in ur area.
 
Yes. The ones designed to be packed and leaded are 'hub joints'. Required by code here for subsurface and slight distance above ground (residential). They can be joined to terra-cotta (clay) underground with packing and cement. Above ground the non-hubbed are joined with those banded rubber couplers. Here they have to be the type with the full stainless wrap.

Sections of CI can be cut with chain cutter, grinder, and or broken up with a hammer.
Cast Iron Soil Pipe & Fittings Handbook, Chapter 2, Installation of Cast Iron Soil Pipe and Fittings
 
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I had a similar situation in a 3 story bldg. And didn't want it to collapse as mentioned, fashoned a dam around base with plastic pails and duct tape, filled with concrete, and to my knowledge is still there, 40 yrs later.. jmo
 
I can STILL remember the interesting smell of hot oakum and lead when I was very young, my Gramps did some sewer fittings. This would have been around 5 years old, around 1953 or along in there

Gas fired lead pot:

s-l1000.jpg
 
interesting....I got some 2 part resin I use for buried cable splices....? Perhaps a clay plug and dam, then backfill around it with resin. Ill have to get back under there and take a few pics for sure now. I bought a new 10 tpi "thick metal" Diablo sawzall blade today just in case I have to cut the old one out. My one issue is that there are 3 daisy chained together and I may not have enough flange to seal to if I cut one out. Well see....
 
pishta said:
I bought a new 10 tpi "thick metal" Diablo sawzall blade today
Click to expand...
Don't use a sawzall. It'll shake the hell out of a brittle pipe that's already compromised. Use a cut off wheel or an oscillating saw.
 
U need a cast iron cutting blade,,,no teeth,,it has grit instead if teeth. Itll glide thru like butter. Blades with teeth are often miserable for cast iron
 
grit blade, gotcha. Good news is I crawled under there again to check if plug and tape were holding and it was, no new water and all the standing water is now subsided to mud. Ill let it dry more before I tackle the PVC rebuild but it looks like Ill at least need 2 Yee's and a 22.5 elbow or whatever that shallow sweep is, and the 2" to extend it all and 4 rubber unions. You can see my tape job in front of pier. I got 18" of clearance down there, access sux
Yee1.jpg
yee2.jpg


I also boarded and sealed up the one entry point so they should be locked out (or in) now.
 
Omg,,,,,,,what a $hit job,,, , ,thats about the most miserable set of circumstances ive ever seen,,from the cast iron, to the sewage, to the mud, to the crawl space height,,,damn,,that's like the perfect storm of misery right there. Make damn sure when u cut those cast iron pipes out, nobody flushes a toilet anywhere upstream,,,or your new fabo monicker will be "shawshank"!
 
Whoever decided 2 " should be shot.
Everything where im from goes to 4" like it or not. 2" goes to 4" right away.
 
Just grey water correct? clean it and seal it. Get the roofing tar in the caulking tube and seal it up good. Not a pressure pipe so no worries. I would also put a leg under that whole contraption right in the middle, as it ages like with all Nice things it will sag.
 
Oh yeah, the dirt under the house isnt soft loam like a normal pier and beam foundation. No, its freaking random broken chunks of concrete, tennis ball sized rocks and chunks of wood (?) Its like they poured demolition fodder in here! The 2" extends down about another 25 feet, then I believe it transitions to 4" as there is a healthy pipe in the middle of the foundation that leads out to the sewer. The 3 feeds you see are: (bright one) is from washer/deep sink in garage (lots of volume from clothes washer) , the horizontal one is the cleanout to the left side of the house, and the 45 is the kitchen sink. The 2 toilets are 25 feet downstream of the right leg and they are much larger feeds. Yup, my **** is my plumber's bread and butter......
 
I have used a diamond tipped sawzall blade and it worked fine, used water on cut for lubrication. support the horizontal run with wooden blocks or strapping which you'll need for support after fernco couplings. I removed some dirt with a small shovel but my clearance was probably less than yours, like 10 inches or so. Hopefully you don't have to crawl very far to get to this. It is a PIA but Mopar guys are smarter than most. I think I saw some vertical pipe clamps at lowes or home depot if you need those.
 
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