Sewer Vents for Dummies

Plumbing vent

The big data lovers are always babbling  about "drilling down" in gigantic datasets to find some great insight (we're sure there are plenty of TED talks about precisely that topic). Here at the Antisocial Network, we occasionally employ a sort of drill-down technique ourselves: we start at known content farms, find a likely website, and zero in on a well-known freelancing fool. Today's one of those days (perhaps because it's Monday? who knows?): we went straight to the mother lode of internet dumbassery, eHow.com, and found one of the site's most dependably dumb contributors: Joan Whetzel. Without further ado, Joan's here to edify her readership on the topic, "What Are Sewer Vent Pipes For?"¹

Interestingly enough, we've seen similar questions before at eHow (twice... no, three times!), so you might think the site would have it figured out by now – but they don't. And, to be fair, Joan is, for once, pretty much on the right track. This time out, her answer is more or less correct; instead it's her presentation that earns her our reverse accolade. Someone who claims to be have been "writing professionally" for more than a decade ought to do better than...

"For the plumbing to work correctly in any house, the pipes require a down-slope to drain sewage from sinks, showers and toilets."

Oooh, icky: let's instead call the stuff coming out of our sinks and showers "waste water," OK? Technically, that's gray water that mixes with the black water from the toilets to become sewage, but we'd rather not think we're standing in "sewage" while we take our showers (though at some health clubs...). By the way, what about bathtubs, Joan? or washing machine or dishwashers? Whetzel then goes on to "explain"... "Sewer vent pipes attach to the plumbing at the house's lowest level and extend upward through the roof to a capped or uncapped pipe." Well, no, vent pipes don't attach "at the house's lowest level," one is plumbed into the drain lines at each "wet" location. We're also confused by the concept of a "capped" vent pipe -- wouldn't capping the pipe negate the purpose of a vent pipe, preventing a vacuum in the drainage lines? Oh, wait, we get it: a vent pipe with a cover... Then there's the ambiguous

"Vent pipes let air into the plumbing system, preventing vacuum formation which permits trouble-free sewage drainage..."

Need a comma there, Joan (and your content editor), or better yet, a re-cast! Finally (there's more, but it gets boring after a while), Whetzel "informs" her readers that

"Warning: The smell of sewer gas inside indicates a damaged vent stack or problem in the plumbing that allows gas into the house (e.g. a poorly sealed toilet or a p-trap). It may be necessary to have a plumber perform a smoky test to locate the problem and determine how to repair it."

Clearly, Joan shouldn't be calling a p-trap "a problem in the plumbing" -- we're not sure whether that's bad writing or total lack of familiarity with plumbing. We are pretty sure, though, that a plumber would perform a "smoke" test, not a "smoky" test. All in all, Joan's less-than-expert writing and her tenuous grasp on the subject of plumbing mean that she's collected yet another Dumbass of the Day award. Yay, Joan...

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/facts_7676663_sewer-vent-pipes.html

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