Sewer Line Remodeling for the Dummy Plumber

PVC wye in soil stack

Among the more irritating features of eHow.com's contributors back in the day was an inability to think through the problems they pretended to address. Today's DotD nominee, despite his BA in Philosophy and his work for a now-defunct charitable foundation, clearly knew jack about plumbing. That's especially true when it came to remodeling existing plumbing. That's probably why when David Young took on the assignment, "How to Connect PVC to a Cast Iron Soil Stack" for HomeSteady.com, it quickly became apparent that he had no idea what he was talking about.

Young immediately jumped on the remodeling bandwagon, babbling in his introduction that,

"Whether you're remodeling a single room or retrofitting an entire house, there may come a time when you have to join newer PVC pipe with older cast iron sewer lines. Cast iron was once a common material for sewer lines and is still present in many older homes."

Both statements are true. Beyond that, however, David ran into trouble, mostly because he was well over his depth – probably, the replacement of a faucet washer – when it came to plumbing. You see, Young read somewhere that,

"Joining PVC to cast iron is also easy with the use of flexible couplings."

Again, true. There's an exception, however: you see, David's instructions are are for joining a PVC pipe to a cast iron pipe, end to end. We're sorry to say, David, that an end-to-end join is highly unlikely unless the entire soil stack is being replaced. If the reader's performing a remodeling job that adds another bathroom or other waste water source, the PVC will have to join the soil stack somewhere along its run... in the middle.

That's possible, of course, since it's been done millions of times; although usually by professionals, not DIYers. To join a PVC waste line in the middle of the soil stack, you need to cut out a section of the cast iron and add a PVC wye fitting with two flexible couplings to clamp cut ends of the stack to your PVC wye. Here are instructions from someone who actually knows how to do this...
Good luck following the steps our Dumbass of the Day cribbed. Maybe you just need to sit there and think about it, instead?

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