Saturday, February 21, 2009

Stumped for Cleanouts

I spent one whole day looking for Clean outs and Floor Drains. Everything that Home Depot, Lowe's or Rona carries is based on the assumption that these items will always be installed in an area that will be only consigned to utilitarian traffic. Even though the above mentioned will be in the Laundry Room, they will be in the direct path to the washroom and I was hoping to have the area as good looking as possible.

Watts Canada makes a nice adjustable unit with a classy bronze cover that I'm sure that I could stick vinyl tile over, however that body of the unit is Cast Iron, and I'm not very sure how to mate the CI body with the ABS pipe. 

Will have to run that by Mike as well. However not very impressed with the Big Box offerings.

2 comments:

Avinash said...

So I read your entire post, and was hoping to find out what a 'cleanout' was. I then looked it up, and thought I'd share it with those that need/want to know ( taken from http://www.plumbingknowledge.com/about-plumbing/what-is-a-plumbing-cleanout.html).

You may have heard the term before but you may not know what it is. A plumbing clean out is a cleanout fitting with a removable plug that is found in a roughed in waste system. It is designed to help keep clear any type of debris that could cause any type of stoppage in the water drain lines. Cleanouts are usually placed at the connection point between the sewer lines and the drain lines where the base is located of a vertical stack and at all places were the pipe direction changes at about 90 degrees.

An actual cleanout is made up of two parts, a female thread adapter and a threaded male cleanout cap. When plumbers find it necessary to create a wall cleanout they usually place the thread adapter so the exposed end is as close to the completed wall as possibly. The portion of thread adapter that sticks out of the wall will be determined by how it is attached to the piping in the wall and the actual wall thickness.

The cleanout for a building sewer line rather than a residential sewer line can be either inside or outside the building. The requirement is that it must be 2 or more inches above the ground or the buildings floor. The cleanout at a vertical stack is required to be 6 inches or more above floor level. Cleanouts for pipes at a 90 degree change pipe direction has to be installed to clear any and all possible stoppages that are indeed caused by the 90 degree turn in the sewer line.

Just like anything in plumbing and construction, services like these have to adhere to specific codes in this case of cleanouts, they must follow the Uniform Plumbers Code. They are as follows, The location of the cleanouts must be made accessible at all times. The clearances must be for a 2 inch the drain requires 12 inches and 18 inches.

At the upper terminal of horizontal runs not trap arms, at each 100 ft of run, for each 135 degree of change( each 45 degree max 1 per 40 feet. There must be cleanouts on all sinks and it must be installed within 20 feet of an access door. The Under flooring piping must extend above the floor or outside building when the access is 18 inches vertical or 30 inches horizontal.

The cleanout exceptions as listed in the Uniform Plumbers Code, the runs can be 5 feet except for sinks, the slope of 72 or ( 1/5 bend) vertical offsets, they can be above the first floor and the Upper terminal is not required if two way provided near connection of building( not ABS )

Unknown said...

And now you know.....

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