Please don’t write “get a plumber to do it” as some of you know my history with plumbers on my particular project; and as a qualifier, that is not to stereotype or generalize about all plumbers in the industry, just the experience I had on my job.
Well, the City inspector keeps remarking, “Well Wiley, there isn’t too much you have left for us to sign off.” And yeah, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel after two years of actual construction. The City inspectors have even hinted that I make a “fake” inspection just to get on the books and remain within my 180-day-must-have-inspection to keep my permit alive.
Anyway, I digress; I need to tap into my City’s 6″ clay pipe line with my 4″ ABS lateral. I called one of the plumbing houses locally where I was going to purchase and entire fitting so that I cut out an opening in the clay line, drop in the fitting with the wye for my lateral, and push over a couple rubber sleeves each side. The one plumbing house, however, suggested that I simply make a hole in the pipe and secure through strapping (maybe some mortar) a saddle sitting at a 45 degree to the line.
Any thoughts on what method might be best? And if I go the saddle route, what to use to make an opening in the clay pipe? Any help or guidance would be appreciated, thanks in advance.
Replies
Are you sure that it your job.
A lot of places the cities does that. And even if they don't they will have perty exactly specifications about how and what materials.
Bill is right, usually the city installs the wye (often at your expense), and then you connect to their wye. 6" clay pipe ? Is someone else on this line ?
A saddle connection works well if the line is active so that you can go in through the top. An explanation of making hole can be seen here:
the hole
you could also cut the hole with a grinder with a diamond blade
a nice saddle system can be seen here
saddle
I think I would prefer cutting out a section of the clay main and putting in your own wye using Fernco connectors ( the rubber fittings you mentioned). This will only work if you can keep the neighbors up the street from flushing while you are working.
Keep in mind, the 6" main belongs to the city. If you do this, and you screw it up and block the main which leads to a backup in someone else's home, you will be getting nasty calls from not just homeowners but from the municipality and from insurance companies paying claims on resulting damages.
good luck
carpenter in transition
Thanks Bill and Tim for the help; excellent links Tim.
Actually, there is a City Spec which is either floating around my office here or on site, but I can't put my finger on it at the moment, only to write that they are specific about what they want. So now that I think about it, I'm not sure a saddle is acceptable. Plus, where my trench is, I'm right on the dang bell fitting so I don't think a saddle will work. Plus, and now that I think about it again, I need a sweep approach with my lateral fitting as per City spec.
I think the best way may just be to rent a concrete saw, cutting my opening perhaps a little "short" then once most of the material is out of there, go back and "trim" the opening in the City line to be more exacting for the fitting.
Fortunately, there is not much on the line; just a pool house that I live in now, and my uncle's house next door where he is rarely there. Although I have a good working relationship with the City in general, the Public Works department is not too helpful. They wouldn't tell me where the line is, nor could they pinpoint a manhole which would aid me in finding the proper depth of the pipe I needed to tap into. I finally did find the other manhole, but had to dig bloody six feet which took a laborer a day and a half to find the pipe. Turns out the pipe on each end of the manholes is about 3 1/2 to 4 feet deep, but due to a pool construction in the 1940's the tailings or fill was push downhill to make a pool deck pad and also fill over the four foot deep sewer line.
Anyway, not sure when I'm going to take a stab at this, but will update when this is done. Thanks again for the help.
sawzall and an abrasive blade works nice for this
Locating the pipe could be a lot simpler. Our plumbers have pipe cameras which have locaters built into the camera head. They then use a finder to locate the head and reveal the pipe depth. We just did one the other day with a mini camera in an 1 1/2" pipe for sump pump water. The $200-$300 fee was well worth it.
carpenter in transition