This is a project coming up soon that I need to work on.

House was originally built in 1941, remodeled in 1952, then remodeled again in 1992. In 1992 they replaced a lot of the old CI drain with PVC. The work in 1992 was permitted and inspected, but it looks wrong to me.



What I don't like:

(1) Isn't this a sanitary tee on it's back? Should it not be a wye there going from vertical to horizontal?

(2) That Fernco rubber coupling - I thought a vertical coupling in this situation requires a banded mission coupling, and NOT a rubber coupling? Also, there seems to be a kink at the joint, is this why a rubber coupling was used? They couldn't get it aligned so a rubber coupling with some give was used?

This is in a crawl space, I bet the inspector never crawled under the house.

Does it look like there is room there to put in a COMBO fitting? Or do I need to offset the entire line sideways a bit to fit in a wye with a 90 to connect to the bottom of that street CI fitting?

Sum I’m not a pro but be very careful if you mess with that, assuming that CI stack goes all the way to the roof, there’s a lot of weight on that if it’s not well supported. In fact, I didn’t think cast iron was permitted to be on top of plastic for that reason.

SUM..... it has been like that for over 26 years with no problems !!!!!
unless you plan on relocating fixtures which would necessitate moving pipes, i'd leave it alone..

Unless that pipe is a single line, with no connections to it, (in which case it is useless), there are plenty of things "supporting" it. That is NOT really a "street" tee, it is a spigot, as in bell and spigot, which is what the majority of cast iron fittings are.

Yes, the white T on its back is a San T and not legal.

Just out of sight, it looks like the PVC is connecting to a cast iron bell/hub somehow.

he isn't a CI hub very thick and it seems to be it's impossible to fit a plastic coupling over the hub unless they go one size up but then the PVC connection would be way too loose? To me it looks like a misalignment.

Also, you mentioned a spigot end. Is this not the same as a street end? Is there a subtle difference? That's the same OD as a CI pipe at that end, right?

Compare a Hub to a No-Hub and you will know the answer.

Normally, NOT. Usually the spigot end has a "bead" on it to secure the oakum, which may have been cut off.

oh ok, so a spigot end of a CI fitting is not exactly the same as the end of a no-hub end due to the bead going around it.

I did a search and this is what I found. So it could be one of these fittings? The top and branch connections are hubbed, and the bottom is a spigot end with a lip around it.



May be this is what is causing the rubber coupling to kind of look mis-aligned? If it does have a lip would the best way to deal with it to cut the lip off? Or to use an aggressive grinding wheel to grind all the way around until it's smooth? May be a CI no hub combo will fit in there with a banded coupling.

Packy, yes I know. I am not in a hurry to do this, but I know eventually my OCD will kick in and I have to do it.

sum, even if you cut off the bead , the cast is still not plumb.
ergo, it is not aligned with the PVC below it.
it is hard to say if this would work ???
they do make PVC hub x spigot fitting that if you cut off the bead will glue into a fitting below and allow you to pack and pour a crooked joint above.
the fitting looks like this...

Packy, I have never seen such a fitting. Is this in ABS?

It's hard to tell from the picture, what is plumb and not. I was kind of assuming that the cast is plumb, since it was original work and it was done by a better plumber than the one who installed the sanitary tee on it's back. May be the bad alignment was due to the PVC being slightly off? or may be the bad crooked fernco is due to it trying to fit over the bead?

I am thinking due to the limited vertical clearance, the re-piping plumber used a sanitary tee instead of a PVC WYE+quarter bend or a combo, if I put in another hub X spigot adapter it will take up more space vertically.

May be to fix this right, I need to remove this cast fitting as well? Start from the pipe or fitting above it, plumb in a combination or a wye+45 underneath it. The side branch that is tying in, needs to be investigated to see if it's stack venting, if it's not, I can lower that pipe and tie it in horizontally with a wye just downstream of the combo. If it's stack venting there then well...I don't know.

The coupling does look "swollen" so the bead may still be inside it. Cut it off, along with enough pipe to fit a combo, a no-hub one would take less space.

sum. if you take the pipe coming in from the left out of the cast iron tee it is going into and route it over to the right then you can remove the san tee on its back and replace it with two 4 inch combos.
remove the tee just above the san tee on its back and you will have tons of height to work with.
to be clear...
remove the san tee on the ground.
replace it with 2 combos looking up.
remove the crooked cast iron vertical tee.
run the cast iron from above into one combo and the pipe coming in from the left into the other combo.
you should have space to put cleanout tees into both vertical drops.

Out of curiosity, is there any change the "sanitary tee on it's back" is actually a quarter bend with a low heel inlet?



If it is an elbow with a low heel inlet does that make it "OK" or still a bad practice?

Sum, the san tee looks like 4" with a 3" bushing coming out the right side. The upper left horizontal pipe coming into the CI tee, what drains into it and can the top of the CI tee be a vent for it?

It looks to me if I use a CI no hub in place of the PVC sanitary tee there isn't enough room vertically.

I looked up Charlotte's sanitary tee specs, if we assume these are 3" pipes (I am not sure they may be 4", the distance from centerline of fitting to the bottom of hub (A) is 3-1/16". The hub is 1.5" deep, so from centerline to top of hub is 4-9/16". There is a short piece of pipe in there, don't know how long it's sticking out into the coupling, let's say 2", that means the distance from the center of the fitting to the bottom of the CI sanitary tee is 6-9/16". That means I will need to find a no hub combo where the centerline of fitting to top of branch around 6-9/16", may be if I cut off 1/2" of the bead it will give me 7".



I then looked up Charlotte's cast iron DWV fitting specs, for a 3" combo the distance E from center of fitting to top of branch is 8". I am off by a whole inch.

steve, that is what I am wondering too. I haven't had the chance to crawl under the entire house to explore, so I think the key is the pipe coming from the left side tying into the cast iron sanitary tee.

If that pipe is already vented upstream then I can use Packy's suggestion to get rid of the higher cast iron sanitary tee and reconfigure everything. However, if that pipe coming in from the left is stack vented right there then I have to somehow keep that sanitary tee unless I consider AAV in the crawlspace.

Packy, this is what you are suggesting?



I think I need to find out if that pipe from the left is already vented upstream or if it's vented at the sanitary tee right?

that is exactly what i was thinking about..
i can't imagine that the pipe from the left is vented up thru the 4 inch vertical stack..

I agree, not the best plumbing job in the world, but this is one of those "It ain't clogged and it ain't leaking, so just leave it be." If I was gonna mess with it I would eliminate the remainder of the cast iron in the process.

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Not a plumber by trade but a fierce DIYer