One of the many deficiencies of my house when I bought it was a scary looking and leaking black water pipe.
This house has an interesting wastewater system that is apparently common in the area, where the black water from the toilet goes to a septic system, and there is a completely separate drain system for the grey water from all of the sinks and shower that leads somewhere else entirely.
It appears that the previous owner got the bell end of a pipe, rammed it over the remnants of the original iron toilet piping, and then just poured ABS glue around it until it sealed-ish. It was a task to remove it, I ended up cutting several vertical slits and then slicing it off at the top of the elbow.
That out of the way, I turned my attention to the huge septic pipe. It appears to be ABS, definitely some kind of plastic, but an odd size, larger than 6" nominal. Anyway, Mr sawzall came to the rescue again, sliced the old cemented in metal clean-out wye right out and got me ready to cram another fernco over it. Before I did, I had a little look with my flashlight, it looks fairly clear, which is definitely a positive sign.
I mentioned that the septic system pipe was a bit larger than 6" nominal, so it was quite the challenge to get the 6-4 fernco on there. In the end, I beveled the pipe edge with an angle grinder, used spit as a lubricant on the fernco, and a screwdriver to pry the sucker on there. I hope that will be a permanent fixture now as 6" is an unreasonably large size and I doubt I will be able to get a plastic fitting that matches the oddball pipe size coming out of the wall anyways.
There was one more glaring issue to address while I was down here. Amongst the other goofy plumbing choices, the "vent stack" for this house is a small pipe that goes out near ground level and up the side of the house. It had become disconnected so the black and grey water plumbing were venting straight into the basement.
As a stopgap, just to make it better until I can redo it properly, I reconnected it, taped it up really good, and supported it, along with the shiny new poop pipe.
And that my friends, was enough IRL shitposting for the day. It no longer leaks, it no longer vents inside, and the fernco on the septic pipe means when the time comes to redo this, it will be a quick easy retrofit. I can't wait to sort out the rest of the plumbing down here.
In any case, the black water pipe that leads from the toilet to the septic system pipe was the mess you see above, a mixture of plastic and metal fittings hodgepoged together with putty and glue and anything else the previous owner could find. It leaked, I had a catch bucket under it to catch the constant dripping, it badly needed to be redone. I bought the parts awhile back during a trip to the plumbing supply house but just never got to it.
Well, it was raining today when I got off work which meant no roof work and a prime opportunity to tackle this.
For now, I'm not redoing the whole toilet flange and everything (that'll come later when I redo the bathroom and move the toilet location) but I do want to connect the metal piping correctly to that huge septic pipe. Step one is get rid of the old abomination, easier said than done.
Gave it a little clean up, honestly not the best as I didn't have a wire wheel for my grinder, but well enough, and rammed a 4" fernco rubber coupler on.
With that done, it was a simple matter of gluing a couple stubs in 2 sanitary elbows to slide into the ferncos and measure, cut and glue the final piece of pipe that fits between the elbows. That left me in good shape looking like this
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