It’s a 1969 build Classic Florida 4-2 single story right near the beach in Boca Raton only 1500 sqf overall very good condition, cinder block walls, cement tile roof, new windows, updated electrical no aluminum, new air and ducting. The only original thing is the cast iron drain piping. When I bought the place the pipes were brought up in the inspection. They were fine but they were cast iron. I said how many houses in this area have cast iron pipes. Consensus was at least 80%. So if i balked it would probably come up on the next house and this was during the covid fueled real estate nonsense.
Got the plumber coming out to clear the line and run a camera but I have a bad feeling as this drain has been backing up on several occasions. I don’t plan on selling the house in the foreseeable future so resale is low on my radar. My floors are pretty new and could easily last another 20 or more years so tearing them sounds bad.
Anybody got any experience here they would like to share?
These houses were all built by the same builder at the same time and the ones that have had issues seem to have been able to reline. I won’t know for certain until the camera goes down on Monday
Got my answer its going to have to be relining. I just watched a few videos and the demo is out of the question we have to be able to live in the house during the project.
I think it depends on where the problem is. If you have some issue outside of the house due to tree roots, settling, or something similar, if you have the money, there is no reason not to demo and reinstall PVC from the house to street. Unless you are running a couple hundred feet of pipe, this can be done in day of house down time or less.
These houses were all built by the same builder at the same time and the ones that have had issues seem to have been able to reline. I won’t know for certain until the camera goes down on Monday
I think you mean just lined. I definitely wouldn’t “reline” a cast iron pipe that’d already been lined.
I think it depends somewhat on the condition of the pipes. My last house we got a bunch lined, but also a bunch replaced outright - the ones that were pretty much destroyed by roots. Would have done the whole thing except Southern CA house had no crawlspace, so it would have been more 10’s of thousands in foundation digging to re-do the whole property. What I did was like $30K as it was.
Another update from the archives. I last said we were going with lining the cast iron pipes. Well since then I found out about a 3rd option referred to as “tunneling”. The plumbers go underneath the slab foundation (its all sand here in florida) and rip out all the cast iron pipes from underneath. The only disruption from the inside is having the toilets removed for a few hours during a week of work. The guys showed up today with a huge vacuum truck and there are currently a bunch of thumping sounds under my floors as they dig out and expose all the pipes. Probably 5–6 days of work overall with a city inspection before they backfill the whole thing with rock.
If this all goes according to plan the next time someone is thinking about the drain pipes in this house iwill be well into 22nd century and more than likely my house will be underwater anyhow due to global warming
Good question. What I can tell you is that the foundation of every house here is a concrete slab no more than 24†thick. Underneath that slab is the softest finest beach sand you can imagine. (I had to remove a few cemented in fence posts, just dug all the way around them and pulled the whole block of cement right out) They are digging about 36â€x36†along the main two lines. The house is tiny only 1500 sqf. I figure less than 5% of the foundation. When they are done they blow it full of crushed / small rock. I figure that rock is probably stronger than what was removed.
If I am calling a foundation specialist in a few years I will also post it here
Edit to add the house is made out of concrete block not wood framed. Cement tile roof supported by a wood frame is the only wood in here.
I think we can get away with this because we are well south of where we could ever have any soil freezing. If you had freeze / thaw cycles this probably would be a recipe for disaster. I don’t think we have dropped below 55F yet overnight this winter.
The epoxy pipe lining didn’t’ offer the savings I had hoped. It was only about 30% less expensive and I had my doubts about the quality of the work on the day. For this job a city inspector will have to look at everything underneath before they can close it all up.
I think we can get away with this because we are well south of where we could ever have any soil freezing. If you had freeze / thaw cycles this probably would be a recipe for disaster. I don’t think we have dropped below 55F yet overnight this winter.
The epoxy pipe lining didn’t’ offer the savings I had hoped. It was only about 30% less expensive and I had my doubts about the quality of the work on the day. For this job a city inspector will have to look at everything underneath before they can close it all up.
There may be confusion in terminology. Basically your footing is the Bottom of the upside down T that bears and distributes the load. The foundation wall is the concrete wall below grade which supports the above grade assemblies and distributes forces down to your footing. Sometimes footing and foundation are used interchangeably.
The cement floor in your basement is called a slab, although it has re-bar it is only about 4-6 inches thick and is generally not structural. IE the re-bar is intended to contribute to uniformity and prevent cracking, but you couldn’t post a set of concrete stairs on top.
I suspect in Florida you don’t have a basement and obviously don’t worry about frost heaves/ground freezing. You probably have a raft slab (slab on grade) which is typically done in a single pour, and incorporates an angled footing and a (typically) thicker slab. Poured as one unit it can/may be more stable in certain types of soils.
Thanks for the detailed reply… I never thought of the footings as compared to the “foundation” or “slab” I think you are spot on. I know for a fact that yes the plumbing is below all the cement and in the sand which really surprised me. This is why the cast iron pipe is slowly disintegrating. Maybe from the outside as well as the inside. I just made the cast iron bandwagon, built in 1969. I have heard that by 1974 cast iron was off the table down here. Our vents going up to the roof are also cast iron but they are in great condition I can see them in my attic and they look like they were put in yesterday. My copper supply lines are down there as well. If there are any issues with those we will get it addressed during this project.
I have somewhat gotten this plumbing rennovation wrong. We are renovating the entire house but when we started the project (we are the GC"s) we didn’t know tunneling was an option and after a bunch of backups having a beautiful kitchen didn’t make any sense if we had poop coming out of our shower. So in the hierarchy of needs we started with the bones of the house to include gettting the cast iron situation taken care. Fast forward and I discovered tunneling and now feel like I could have rennovated and taken care of the plumbing when it finally goes… That much said the company I am using has a 3 month wait list. There is that much work down here. I signed on with them back in October. Now the caveat to waiting is this. I have seen this piping go bad in my neighbors places. And in the worse case scenario you can find yourself where you can’t flush any toilets. And if you want to minimize the spend you end up with a Port-A-John in the driveway for several weeks until a company can get to your project. Don’t ask me about showering and dishes I have no clue how they are doing that.
Anyhow, joys of home ownership. Our plan is to make this house the last stop so we want to get it right and enjoy it while we can. “Mann tracht, Un Gott Lacht”
The cracking I’m referring to is not from freeze/thaw but rather lack of foundation / footing support. I’d certainly ask questions whether you should invest in an independent structural assessment prior to commencement of works. An elderly relative was only just telling me about cracking and undermining on a complete new home project of his. New builds should be much easier to control such issues, just from accessibility.
The epoxy method is something we’ve pushed ahead with for work on a major road project. Our durability specialists signed off on it. The only real downside appears to be the loss of internal diameter which (percentage wise) was not significant on our 6’ pipe.
