No, this is not a plumbing question. This is a sewer question. In my job,
I deal with sewer questions. The building inspectors deal with plumbing
questions. The difference is whether you are inside or outside the
foundation.
>Water is easy
It always is. Water can flow uphill (that's what they have water towers
for).
>Waste is harder.
It always is. Sewer stuff needs to be bigger, and unless you want to spring
for a grinder pump, it has to go downhill.
>The property's connection to the sewer line is very
>close - I thought I would be able to "just" dig down and tap into the
>line.
I can't begin to guess what happens in your corner of California. In my
town, a resident homeowner is allowed to make changes to his sewer system on
his own property if he does all the work himself and gets a permit from us
for a hundred bucks, paid in advance. If the work is all in the private
property, he can hire a licensed plumber, who also needs to pay the hundred
bucks up front. The Sewer Division of Public Works licenses House Drain
Contractors, who can work anywhere outside the foundation, including in the
public right-of-way (sidewalk, boulevard, curb, street). HDCs can get a
permit with a phone call. We run a tab for them and send them a bill at the
end of the month.
What do you get for your hundred bucks? Inspection by an impartial city
inspector and the permanent maintenance of records. Although the property
owner is responsible for the sewer line all the way to the main, we have
records on file of all permitted work back to the 1880s.
>The main line runs at the back property line. There's a buried cleanout
>in the back yard. The house is only 20' from the back property line,
>and the waste exit from the garage is about 5' from the back property line.
So your sewer main is in the alley? We have some of those, but generally
sanitary sewers run on the centerline of the street.
>After a bit of exploratory digging I realized a) guessing where the line
>runs is a bad idea
That's why we keep records. Maybe your city does, too.
>and 2) it's probably *way* deep there.
Oh, yeah. Round these parts, we normally require private sanitary lines to
be eight feet deep at the property line. Then again, we usually have
basements here. If you are down that far, you'd better know what you are
doing, or we will be reading about you in the newspaper. In your part of
California, it may not be that deep.
>So now I'm back to the cleanout. This is a piece of 4" cast iron
>pipe that angles down into the ground. I followed it about 2' down
>without finding the Y junction that must be there (see (2) above).
>My initial thought was that I could dig down to the
>junction here to help me find the main line.
>
>Now I'm thinking that I should just put my 1.5" line
We don't allow anything less than 4" for a gravity system. I wouldn't put
anything smaller in. Some day something is going to clog it, and your sewer
cleaner is going to need room to work.
>from the sink
>into the cleanout pipe and call it good.
That probably wouldn't sail here. Ideal situation is to put in a manhole,
but we realize that most folks won't go that far. I you have a manhole,
though, it sure makes it easier for the sewer-cleaning guy to solve your
kid-flushed-the-sponge problems.
What we would approve would be to cut into your drain line just downstream
of the clean-out. We require clean-outs every 100 feet of single pipe or at
places where two lines come together.
>But I don't know how! It's CI pipe, but my new drain line is ABS.
I think PVC is a better bet for sewer line. We allow schedule 30 PVC in
private property (state plumbing code makes us), but I think that's false
economy. We require the thicker schedule 40 in the right-of-way, and
recommend that the owner spec it for the whole job.
>I've
>seen some sort of clamp on coupler used for all CI systems, but I
>don't know where to get them or if they're appropriate for this.
>
>My current thinking is to cut off the cleanout pipe and connect
>an ABS Y here with a rubber coupling. But I don't know if I can
>bury a rubber coupling...
Yes, you can. There are such couplings in use all over our town, and we
approve them for repairs and for PVC-to-iron or PVC-to-clay connections.
There is a lot of that old flower-pot clay out there still. A brand name
that tends to be used generically is "Fernco".
I'd recommend that you call the city and find out what's what in your town.
I don't belong to a secret brotherhood of sewer-utility office workers,
though, so I won't turn you in if you don't.
Phil Ethier West Side Saint Paul Minnesota USA
1970 Lotus Europa, 1992 Saturn SL2, 1986 Suburban, 1962 Triumph TR4 CT2846L
pethier@isd.net http://www.mnautox.com/ http://www.vtr2002.org
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