plumbing for upstairs toilet

woodbutcher

Well-known Member
We'd like to add a bathroom upstairs directly above the facilities on the ground floor. The house is built on a slab foundation, so the drains for the ground floor fixtures are under concrete with only vents coming through the roof. What is the best way to provide an upstairs drainpipe large enough to serve the needs of fixtures upstairs?
Butch
 
You can install "dry vents." Home Depot sells them. They are basically just check-valves that vent your pipes and don't have to go through the roof. Just have to be higher then all the other drains.
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I did just like James said and it works just fine for me but if you live in area that has a strict code check to see if it meet their specs.
 
Thanks for all the replies. The vent stacks that come through the area of the planned bathroom are 2". If I had known we would need a bathroom up there, I would have had the plumber use 3" vent material, at least to ground floor ceiling height. Too soon old, too late smart.
Butch
 
Well, 2" can handle tub, shower, sink but not a commode unless it is a special one with a grinder/macerator motor in it. They can use a 3/4 line believe it or not because they grind everything up. If you have women using that setup, make darn sure nothing but tissue goes in there.those nylon tampons jam the grinder.
 
Crawl into the attic or up on the roof and slide a 3" vent pipe in place of the 2". You may need to open an access in the wall at ground level to hook your pipe.
 
Bust out the concrete and Y into a 3-4" drain line and run it up.

No other way to do it. Wet venting, using vent pipe from down as a drain for up, can work for the tub an sinks but not toilet. Even then it's not code, around here, unless it's one pipe size bigger than standard.
 
Yep, that is what I was afraid it would take. Remodeling always leads to more work than you originally intended.
Butch
 
Interesting. I had never heard of those. I would dread taking that thing apart to work on it if it broke down, though.
Butch
 
Good Lord! Some of you guys worry WAY too much, and the question was not about what some written code says. It was about alternatives. For a situation like you described - installing a check-valve type vent works fine. You already have SOME venting. You are just adding. If one 2" vent does not suit your needs, just install two. Heck even three if it makes you feel good. All it is is a check valve that lets air into the pipe when there's a suction on it. As to being hard to work on?? If there's a problem, just unscrew it and intall a new one.
 
It isn't really venting which is the problem here. It's drainage. He wants a 2nd floor bathroom and the easiest solution (though a terrible one, not to mention being contrary to all code) would be to use the 2" vent pipe(s) of the ground floor bathroom as waste pipe(s) for the 2nd floor bathroom. Besides being illegal (in a code sense), and inadequate, it could very easily lead to sewage backup problems which would absolutely define the word nasty. (Hint: Sewage in the downstairs bathroom sink.) No type or amount of additional venting is going to change the fact that using the existing vent pipes as drain pipes would make the first floor sink and tub/shower potential sources of outflow for 2nd floor generated wastewater/sewage.

Stan
 
I agree 100%. I would not hook up a toilet even to a 3" pipe. If I have to go through the work of installing a bathroom - it's 4" or nothing for me. Going smaller is just asking for clogs (if you get the right person using that bathroom).
 
Butch,

Dean Olson is exactly right. There's no other way to do it that you will ever be completely happy with. You're exactly right, too. "Remodeling always leads to more work than you originally intended." Myself, I find that about half the agony is the result of my unwillingness to accept the inevitable. Once I quit being unhappy that it's going to be harder than I hoped it would be, and get started, it's always just another job.

Good luck. I hope it goes well.

Stan
 
Yep. I agree. I can get access to our 4" line by breaking concrete. I guess that is going to be the way to go.
Butch
 

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