Splicing PVC for Dummy DIY Plumbers

tying into PVC drain

You may have noticed by now that we bitch a lot about freelancers attempting to provide instructions for jobs they've never done, will never do, and don't understand in the first place. The nice people at eHow.com assembled a vast library of freelance content of this type, enough so that we long ago dubbed the site the "mother lode of misinformation." Today, we nominate yet another eHowian, Laurie Brown, whose "How to Tap Into a Basement PVC Drain Pipe" has been shoved into the niche site HomeSteady.com by the owners of eHow, Leaf Group.

Our staff of DIY plumbers determined that the probable source of the question was a homeowner performing a remodeling job who wanted to add the drain for a new bathroom to the soil stack in the basement. The DIY plumber was lucky that the soil stack was PVC and not cast iron... In either case, though, the DIYer would need to insert a wye (not a tee) with slip couplings, no-hub fittings, or flexible fittings. That last is because, since everyhint is fixed in place, you can't move the two sides of a splice aside to slide in a new PVC fitting.

Our DIYer, however, wouldn't be lucky to find these instructions, though, because Brown had absolutely no idea of the problem, and even less of the solution. No, Laurie's references were a general guide to assembling PVC, a how-to for French drains, and a tutorial for installing in-ground sprinkler systems. We submit that none of those resources could be considered "on-topic."

We found Brown telling her readers to, "Hold the tee fitting up to the existing pipe... Use [a] pen to mark... where the end of each pipe... will slide into the fitting and abut against those ribbed edges forming a tight seal..." ...which she followed up with instructions on how to cut and "scrap [sic]" the pipe. Next, she said to, "Slide the tee fitting onto each end of the pipe and allow the cement to set." That's when we were absolutely certain that our Dumbass of the Day had no earthly idea what she was talking about.

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