I learned what I know about plumbing in the DC Metro area, but now I’m in Buffalo, & things are different here.
Every house has, in the front yard, a vent & trap assembly on the main sanitary line. I never saw this in DC….I don’t know what the reasoning is for it, but I do know I see them being snaked there often, and also being dug up & re-piped….I suspect the vent pipes tend to let in debris, and tend to heave some in the winters.
I’ve got 2 floor drains in my basement. One is 3′ from the sump pump, has 1 clay drain tile coming in, and one going out straight to the sump pit….it’s at the low spot in the floor, it pre-dates the sump, and I’m thinking it may have been connected to the main line prior to the installation of the sump pump…though it seems to be mostly mud at the bottom, and I cant feel an old plugged hub anywhere.
The second floor drain is about 6′ from the first, and right next to a 3′ main from the adjacent wash tub and the kitchen above. It doesn’t drain at all. (I’ll have a later post on how I came to find this out). My first thought was that the previous HO had plugged it (the local plumbing inspector wants basement drains run to the sump pit, because otherwise you get groundwater into the sanitary sewers, instead of into the separate storm sewer-which, if it were raining in your basement, I might agree with! ).
Yesterday I sucked the standing water out of the floor drain, (got that nice, nasty old drain black smelly gunk into the wet-vac). Then I got out my big (but unfortunately, manual) snake out & went at it. There’s no trap, and the snake turns the corner at the bottom (with the water out, I could see a nice sweep elbow down there) and goes about 2 feet before it hits what seems to be mostly grey clay.
So. this drain doesn’t seem to be connected to the kitchen drain…or to the sump pit…and I’m wondering what it does go to, & debating renting a proper sewer snake & going at it.
I also wonder why there’s no trap on the floor drain. I’m pretty sure the houses here were built with separate downspout drains to the street storm sewer, but the local practice is to not allow there use anymore, & either run to grade, or get what they call a “bubbler”, which is a new PVC line, run to the curb, & then tee-d down into the storm sewer & up to grade. I don’t think the floor drain would have been connected to that…too far below grade.
Any plumbers out there got any insights for me?
