can i do without a sewer vent
long story,but at the last moment when pouring my garage floor i stuck in a 4″ pipe for a toliet in the corner. never gave a thought to a vent, so now i’m getting ready to set the toliet and the light bulb goes off..
this pc of sewer ties in to the main about 80′ from where it exits the house and it’s about another 50′ to where it dumps into the city sewer main.
i know it should ,but do you think i can get by with no vent? the only option i see that i could do now is go on the outside and dig down and tap a vent in and run it up the outside wall of garage.[this would only be about 20″ from toliet].
next option if i’m really screwed is put in a urnial and come up with a vent that way.
how would you handle this slight oversight. larry
if a man speaks in the forest,and there’s not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
Replies
You need a vent. The vent can be 20" from the toilet but you need one. Another option, besides a urinal, is to install a wall hung toilet.
well what the urnial does for me is ,i could come off the 4" thats there and reduce to a 2" then come up the wall,fitting for urnial and continue on thru the roof. to make this look right i would probably need to build a little wall to space out over my 4" rough in,but hey it's a shop. larryif a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
Using a wall hung toilet would enable you to tie in a vent, same as the urinal. It would also enable you to tie in a sink. I don't know about you but when I'm working with chemicals in my shop I want to wash BEFORE I use the toilet. The sink would also come in handy for washing out paint brushes as well.
Another way to do it would be to raise the floor under the toilet. Considering the price of a wall hung toilet that might be the cheaper way to go.
nothing was more confusing for me when plumbing my house than vents,i'm thinking the function of a vent is when you drain water it won't suck water out of the trap,keeping it sealed.
but with a toliet you empty the trap and it refills creating the seal again.
but then again i'm the dumbaz that forgot to put a vent in the line:] larry
if a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
I don't understand how the urinal or a wall hung toilet is going to solve your problem.
Seems that if you are able to get the 4" into a wall for a wall hung you could get the 2" vent into the same wall.
What am I missing?
That is what I was thinking. Evidently they think since the urinal and toilet refill their traps after the flush they will be okay. The problem is other fixtures will tend to siphon them.
You might be able to substitute an AAV for a vent in
certain circumstances. Might not be code in your state,
though. In places where AAVs are allowed, code requires at
least one proper vent somewhere in the system.
(practically speaking, in my jurisdiction, which is outside
the US, vents are not required in buildings under three stories
tall, and that's the norm for all new construction. Now, this is
not exactly ideal from the POV of indoor air quality, etc.,
but they do manage to get away with it.)
AOB,
AS others have pointed out, you should have a vent to meet code, and due to the fact that vents serve an important funtion,,,,,,
but you know what,,,, I bet that toilet will work fine w/o a vent. The 4" pipe is plenty big, and in a manner of speaking, it is vented ( a long way from the toilet ).
Harry
Always over budget,
I shouldn't admit this but I didn't have a working vent in my house for over 3 years and every toilet flushed just fine.. (and resealed with trapped water).. a 4 inch pipe was large enough to provide the required vent in my case.. I finally got my roof vent in last year and I didn't notice any change in flow or drainage.
Never got a wiff of sewer gas!
Yeah, I have one 2" vent for my entire house. Two baths, a kitchen and laundry. Not a slow drainer in the house.
some day look up vent cross sectinal and you will see why 2 in does not work for your whole house
I'll look it up and see why it doesn't work and then I'll continue to use everything in my house and see that it does work. I'm no engineer, but the reality is that I don't have any slow drains, I don't have water being sucked out of my traps, and I only have one 2" vent. And it's 2" cast iron at that. I didn't build the house this way, It was built that way along time ago. the plumbing was added sometime in the 40's-60's where the sewage went into a brick ces pool. Now it's connected to public, and the everything but that 2" cast iron vent is new abs. I would have changed it to a 3", but it's through a terne roof which is not something I wanted to mess with.
Edited 2/15/2008 4:31 pm ET by rnsykes
Ever try to take a #### into a urinal? If it was my shop I would break a couple square feet of the slab. Install the vent, probably make it a 2 inch so it could be a wet vent for a sink. Then repair the floor, install some porcelain tile and nobody ever sees that you broke the floor and you have a washroom you can use.
Have a good day
Cliffy