Need Home Plumbing Advise

[GolfVenture]

Before I tear the basement wall appart, sure would appreciate some plumbing and subflooring insite for I've no building experience.

 

While remodeling my basement I discover a plumbing leak in a basement bedroom. The leak at first appeared to be near the clean out but after some investigation the leak is coming from way above the cleanout. The concrete wall is 66 feet long and it is about 3 feet from the corner of the side wall.

 

Above the leak on the main floor the kitchen sink/ garbge disposal /dishwasher is there. I've ran the washer machine and while in the drain cycle it uses different plumbing about 12 feet away on the side wall of the house.

 

That then leaves the kitchen sink/ garbge disposal /dishwasher for they are right above the plumbing leak.

 

Now this last summer I put in new engineered wood floor on the main part of the house above the basement. I cut the nonollieum up to the kitchen cabnette and left nonollieum under the dishwasher. The refriderater does have water and ice. I therefore did not disturb anything 2 feet from the wall.

 

I first ran water into the sink and after some time no leak found. Then I ran the dishwasher and during the drain cycle that is when the leak was found. Then when I add the sink water with the dishwasher the leak is worst.

 

I've added 2 pictures.

 

Now the house is about 24 years old and it was my custom built home. The basement stood unfinished and unstudded for about 3 years and the leak was not there when the basment was finished 3 years later.

 

Could it be as simple as maybe pouring something down the drain so the chemical can find it way into the leak and fuse it together.

 

OR

 

Is the only thing to do is to just open the wall up and then go from there?

 

Thanks for your advise.

[GolfVenture]

here are the pictures

[Sylvester]

I understand plumbing and you have a drain leak from what you described. You need to call a "licensed" plumber to look at it. Nothing can be diagnosed with two pictures.

 

[CaptainJoe]

if you can't see a leak above the floor:

Most likely leaking at a tee , although i have seen some jackwagons that thought it would be a good idea to caulk completly around a toilet on a wood floor. When the seal (wax ring) goes guess where the water goes? plus, it will rot the floor out...

 

Regardless,

If the drywalls wet your gonna have to replace it (drywall) anyway.

 

If you use a stud finder and Mark the center of the studs on each side with a pencil, you'll be able to cut the bad section out. score penciled section on each side with a utility knife, (studs bout 16" on center) , then randomly guess where the center is and score . You can make make some horizontal scores about a foot apart but just deep enough to cut the paper on all cuts. Now comes the fun part, hit it in the middle with the side of your hammer . That will crack the drywall on the edges making it easy to cut. Then take you knife and complete cutting the backside of the drywall paper...it will come out in chunks.

[kevin-vic-b.c.]

I am a "licensed" plumber .... from here I can tell you you have a leak but not much more. It just has to be tracked. My guess is it is behinh the kitchen counter/sink and coming down. From the picture it does not look like who ever installed the pipe knew what the Plumb part of Plumber was about so this could mean that the pipe in not properly fitted up above ASSUMING that all fittings are glued and the angle of the pipe with the clean out they may or maynot connect with the next fitting. Open the wall under the kitchen sink first and see what you see.

 

Or yes I will make a service call for a small fee plus travel time and expences,,,,,

:mo money: :mo money: :mo money: :mo money:.... I need new gold plating on my pipe wrenches.

[StarFan]

It is not easy to figure this one out without being at your place. But by looking at the pictures the first thing i notice and I don´t like is the angle on the pipe from the joint and downward. Looks like it is not straight/askew and that will make a seal more likely to produce a leak. The dishwasher usually joines to the drainpipe from the sink into the waterlock (see attached picture - The flex pipe goes to dishwasher). And since you state that when running the sink drain everything is O.K. but when the dishwasher pumps the water in it starts leaking (more heavily when dishwasher and sink are both draining) then I would think that the pipes need either a pressure or a little shake or rattle to leak. My guess is that the drainpipe is not fastened/secured inside the wall and produces a leak on a badly aligned joint/seal when pressure or/and significant amount of water goes through. I would open up the wall to locate the leak and fix this once for all. Othervice you are going to have endless problems with this. Gotta get to the root of the problem and fix it properly in my opinion. If you tear up the wall and replace/fix the pipejoint/seal, make sure to fasten the pipe so it has no possibilitie to move then you should be in good shape for years to come. And get a new pipe or at least new seal if that is the cause of the leak, clean everything thouroughly before putting the new seal in and test the pipe repeatedly before closing up the wall.

Would be interesting to know what was the cause after you have investigated

 

(Like to add that I do not know if you guys in USA use glued joints on drainpipes or rubber seal joints. Different things in different countries but in Europe we mostly use drain pipes that have rubber rings in the joints and you can take them apart to chance a piece out). This might also be a leak in a water line - gotta cut the wall to inspect.

 

 

Friendly regards,

Jonas/StarFan

Edited January 10, 2012 by StarFan

[StarFan]

Sorry - Forgot the picture. First one is of a standard Europian kitchen sink and dishwasher combo drain. The second one is a standard Europian drainpipe with rubber seal

Wish you luck with your project and am sure it will be an easy fix.

[GolfVenture]

Glad I asked for I would not have thought about opening the wall under the sink. I will do that tomorrow and report back.

[CaptainJoe]

Starfan"Like to add that I do not know if you guys in USA use glued joints on drainpipes or rubber seal joints. "

for the return pipe..

everything behind a wall or under a floor," for the most part", is cleaned using a solvent and glued.

most things above the floor have plastic compression fittings (jtraps straight pipe connectors etc...)

rubber gaskets mainly used on the bottom of sink strainers

 

For input water lines... ha,ha it's anybodys guess could be copper pipe, to any one of a number of different types of plastics... some soldiered, some glued others using compression fittings... I especially like the shark bites.... they make working with a variety of pipe effortless...

[BOO]

Glad I asked for I would not have thought about opening the wall under the sink. I will do that tomorrow and report back.

 

Although that is probably where the leak is, that sink cabinet more than likely has a back in it soooooo you are either going to have to cut the back out of the cabinet or remove it to get to the drain pipe. I found a leak like that a few year ago where the joint had no glue on it at all.

Good luck,

BOO

[Ozlander]

Since the leak did not show until the drywall was applied, it could be caused by a sheet-rock screw piercing a drain pipe.

 

It's happened before.

[GolfVenture]

The sheet rock was applied in the early 1990s. I do not know how long it has been leaking. The sheet rock by the floor was all black. There were no standing water but the carpet and pad in about 2 feet radus was damp. We do not run the dishwasher that often so the water leakage would have time to evaporate some.

 

I hope the leak is behind the sink wall and accessable. I hope a sheet rock nail did not puncture the drain pipe in the basement wall, for if it did then I would have to open the sheet rock up. The patching wouldn't look very good afterwards.

 

Tomorrow will tell.

[dacheedah]

My first question is, is regarding the drain line from your dishwasher to the sink. Does that line run from the dishwasher, high in the cabinet, to the garbage disposal?? If it does not when your disposal has debris in it it will feed water back to your dish washer and leak. That line needs to run as high as possible in the cabinet.

 

If that's not it chase your leak while leaking. Use warm water and have someone above running it. Go to the last point to look and follow the leak, it can run along for some distance before hitting something like a sliver, nail ... that breaks the surface tension of the water.

[GolfVenture]

Open up the rock underneath the sink above the basement. Oops I did an (ASSUME) only with out the U.

The main drain pipe made an immediate left turn.

Then I realized that I should have taken an accurate measurement in the basement from the corner wall to the leaking drain pipe (4 ft 5 in ).

Then at the sink measured from the corner (4 ft 5 in). The sink drain pipe is another 3 ft more from the 4 ft 5 in mark.

Also after the drain took that left turn the pipe gently angles down.

So my question is? Is the 4 ft 5 in the actual place the drain pipe turns down from the upstair to the basement. Probably.

 

I then went onto the roof and located the vent pipe.

Using the skylight as reference for both the roof and the kitchen, the vent pipe is 1 ft left of the skylight, and at the sink the same 1 ft left of the skylight.

 

So that means I need to open up the wall behind the actual kitchen cabinett. I was lucky that the sink area did not have a wood wall but exposed rock.

 

So my plan is to cut through the backing of the cabinett around the 4 ft 5 in area or about 2 inches left of the center cabinett front verticle brace.

 

What I opened up so far under the sink is not wet nor damp.

 

Any suggestions before I open the cabinett backing.

 

See more pictures.

 

Will be taking a break for a Chriopratic apt.

 

I'm thinking this is better than opening up the basement wall for if the leak is above the basement ceiling then I will not have to do a patch job on the rock in the basement. While all the work in the sink area are hidden.

 

Last resort is to open up the basement wall. Good Plan?

[MiCarl]

There should be a Y pipe where the sink drain connects to the stack. My guess is you'll find your leak where the sink drain connects to the Y. The rest of the pipe is vertical enough the water should rush past the joints rather than leak (unless you have a blockage).

 

If you have a screw run into the drain I doubt it would leak. A friend had a sheet rock screw into a cold water pipe and it didn't leak until he removed the screw. A screw would create a nice place for a blockage to build up though.....

[dacheedah]

It looks like ( in your picture) your dishwasher hose is running low, it should cross high above or near the top if the cabinet, this prevents backflow from the sink to the dishwasher.

[BradT]

Good luck. I hate water leaks..........................

 

Brad

[cecdoo]

Have you tried taking the small kick plate off the dishwasher and looking under there with a flashlite while it/water is running? Also you dont need to take all the dwall out in basement, just cut a 10x10" hole near ceiling to see if you can see anything, easier to fix if there is no problem there.

[Trader]

The sheet rock by the floor was all black. There were no standing water but the carpet and pad in about 2 feet radus was damp. .

 

Patching the sheet rock is very simple. I'd open it up to investigate fully....no sense having to do it twice!.

The Black area of sheetrock is probably black mold....which is very toxic!

It's not really a problem until you disturb it so make sure you wear a mask when you rip things apart!!!

 

You can spray pure bleach on whatever spots remain after you remove what you have to to access the area and that will kill it...but don't play around...do it right!

[GolfVenture]

Removing the kick plate was the 1st thing I did and no leak found.

 

Last night I cut out the back of the cabnett where the Verticle T intersection is.

Picture attached.

As the pipe went through the flow 2 x 6 plate I felt that yellow spray on foam insullation.

 

This morning:

Just filled both deep sinks and let them both drain. No leak found in the basement.

Now ran a dishwasher rince cycle with both sinks filled and the leak drenched an entire paper towel and more.

 

Had there been a leak above the yellow foam insullation that a paper towel around the foam would pick up some water. No leak found above the foam insullation.

 

So I'm thinking that from the Verticle T interection, then down that would be a straight unspliced piece of drain pipe to the clean out in the basement room. Well maybe there might be a splice, but I wouldn't think that splices would be allowed by code or could it.

 

With that assumption maybe the explaination that a rock nail or screw may have pierced the drain pipe and after the nail/screw began to rust the leak began and worst as it rusted more.

 

I like the idea of cutting only a 16 " width piece. Of course I can't find my stud finder when I need it. Thought I could locate all the screws/nail and see if one is off center towards the drain pipe.

 

Guess I'll need to go purchase another one.

[GolfVenture]

hmm. I just noticed that upstairs the drain pipe is on the right side of the 2 x 6 and in the basement the drain pipe is on the left side of the 2 x 6.

 

Maybe thats because the framing on the basement is inside the cement wall and the framing on the main floor is on top of the cement wall would account for the off alignment of the framing and would allow the drain pipe to be a straight piece down from the verticle T to the basement clean out. But then there could be an angle piece to bring the drain pipe next to the 2 x 6 just below the floor joist in the basement.

 

With that guess I'll open iup a 16 " by 12" from the ceiling in the basement.

 

Open to any thoughts while I go to home depot to pick up another stud finder.?

[CaptainJoe]

if you have a small magnet put a piece of scotch tape over it so it doesn't mark your walls... might save you a trip,

[BradT]

if you have a small magnet put a piece of scotch tape over it so it doesn't mark your walls... ,

 

Assume you are looking for drywall screws ? If so the magnet would have to be pretty big ?

 

Brad

[CaptainJoe]

Not really . I've got some neodymiam magnets that are super strong 1"x3/4" x 3/16"thick

 

doesn't really take much as all drywall screws and nails are steel. that plus they are only covered with about a 1/16" of joint compound ... you will feel it pulling when you move over one and it will actually stay on the wall by itself.. Give it a try.

[yamtom]

Dont concern too much about the drywall, a skilled mudder can fix that up for very little time or money, but dont bother trying it yourself when the time comes unless you have done lots of it before, just find the best mudder you can, for the finish work, and buy em a case of whatever he likes and a good steak.