At Home In The Woods

[Mundy]

Around here sanatary sewer lines are air tested. I don't know the specifics but they are charged with a couple pounds (4PSI comes to mind) and they have to hold that for certain time.

The water test your people described and air bubbles gurlgling out sounds fishy. For the trapped air to be moved out it seems the water would need to be flowing or at least moving to move the air. Without some water movement the air pockets would just sit.

 

[Obed]

Today the inspector passed the basement drain lines and site for pouring concrete. The construction manager told him about having to add water to the pipe and the inspector still passed it. Even though the inspector passed the drains, it hasn't passed my approval yet. Tomorrow the plumber will arrive about 10:30 AM to install a vent for the floor drains and perform an air pressure test. I made sure he understood that I would meet him there and that I wanted to be there when the air pressure test is performed.

Saturday night we are going to have a hard freeze (24 degrees F). We will drain the water from all the lines and put potable antifreeze in the traps.

 

[Obed]

Eddie,
The gravel is #57. Someone earlier in this post described what #57 gravel is if you want details on it. Sand does sound like a better fill material around the pipes. I called a friend who is a general contractor in a town about an hour from here. He said that while sand is better, it's common practice in this area to put gravel around drain pipes under the slab and that I shouldn't have any problems as long as there are no big rocks mixed in with it. If we were starting from scratch, I would specify sand.

Thanks for the input.
Obed

 

[2manyrocks]

My concern at this point is that if you are having to oversee this construction manager to this level to make sure that your drains lines aren't leaking, what else are you in for down the road? This is basic stuff, but important stuff.

Nobody wants a septic drain line with whatever yuck stinking up their house later because somebody ran a loader over the lines, broke them, and then wanted to cover up their mistake and move on. There are reasons the drain lines are supposed to be air and water tight.

 

[dave1949]

My concern at this point is that if you are having to oversee this construction manager to this level to make sure that your drains lines aren't leaking, what else are you in for down the road? This is basic stuff, but important stuff.

Ditto.
Dave.

 

[CurlyDave]

To me, the foundation is the most important and the least forgiving part of a house. Errors under concrete are very expensive to correct.

Errors in framing are much more easily repaired during the process of building.

OTOH, if it were my project, I would be looking for a new construction manager. Pay this guy off for what he has done and get someone else.

The reason would be "incompetence". Once you discover and fix the sewer leak he was willing to gloss over, you have absolute proof that he is not competent and can fire him at will, no matter what the contract might say.

Of course if you keep him on after knowing about the leak and not firing him, you may lose your ability to fire him at will. Spend an hour with an attorney.

 

[Pops15]

I agree with Eddie, 2manyrocks, dave1949 and CurlyDave.

 

[tommu56]

I anit no plumber but have a lot of common scene.

To the pressure test would be ok, but I would cap the low point and put risers on all the stubs up about 12" above the concrete level and fill with water and mark every risers water level then watch level if it doesn't go down.

take cap off low point and drain lines, blow out the traps put RV antifreeze in the traps.

tom

 

[Obed]

I met the plumber at the property today. He put a guage on the septic drains, pressurized it with air. We waited 30 minutes and the guage didn't move. He then cut the cap off the end of the septic drain as I watched the guage go down. It looks like there is not a leak. The plumber is in his late 60's and semi-retired. I had never met him before today. Talking to him, he seems to know what he's doing. He's been doing plumbing for a long time.

He drained all the lines and put antifreeze in the traps. It's going to be in the low 20's F tonight.

 

[Obed]

Tomorrow's a big day! We are moving our camper and storage trailer onto the property. It will be wonderful to get onto the property. Plus, with our house located in the woods out of sight of neighbors, we want to live on the property for security reasons. I'm sure we'd get stolen blind during construction if we weren't onsite.

We've been dreading moving day. There's a really steep hill on the street that runs up to the top of the ridgeline. We have hired someone to pull our trailers. I've had some transmission repairs on my truck and don't really want to stress it by pulling the heavy trailers up that hill. We told the trailer mover about the steep hill and suggested he might want to look at it before taking the job but he said he would be fine.

I really hope tomorrow goes without any major hitches.

 

[EddieWalker]

We waited 30 minutes and the guage didn't move. He then cut the cap off the end of the septic drain as I watched the guage go down. It looks like there is not a leak.

I've never heard of an air test that was done in 30 minutes. I've never done one on a drain line, just gas lines. I can tell you that a gas line test is done for twelve hours before it can be certied as leak free.

This may or may not be an issue. If you are comfortable with moving forward, then that's all that matters. If you are not, then it might be worth your time to talk to a few other plumbers, builders and even the inspector, to see if a 30 minute test is acceptable.

A good place to talk to allot of plumbers all at once is the supply house. I've gone there several times to ask for advice. I've never had a problem finding people wh would tell me how to do it right.

What is your project manager advising you to do? I'm a little unsure about him and what he's advised you to do so far.

Eddie

 

[Obed]

Eddie,

I did some searches online yesterday about how to test septic drains. Here's one place I found New home construction drain-plumbing for do it yourself plumbers . I don't know whether this site is right or wrong about the time for the septic pressure test. However, that's pretty much how the plumber did the test.

Oh, regarding an earlier question you asked, the PVC piping was primed using the purple stuff.

Originally, the first time the water test was done, there was a leak and the construction manager and plumber found it. That was the test that the inspector failed. I guess the way the water level dropped, the construction manager figured it was a leak and got it fixed. I appears that he was right about the second test; he didn't think we had a leak. He even talked to the inspector about it and got his opinion. On the second test, The water dropped at least 6 inches the first 45 minutes. It dropped more than that overnight. However, my wife did not have a great view of the water level in the 10 ft. pipe and could say for certain exactly how far down it went. The construction manager says that when he filled it up again, that it filled very quickly and he concluded it had not gone down very far and that it was just air bubbling out.

I know my posts have made the construction manager appear in an unfavorable light. I have to say that he got all the plumbing issues fixed in a timely manner. There are some things that I really like about him. I just haven't mentioned them in these posts. He's really hard working, honest, and tells me if something he did messed something up. His primary experience is framing and that's the main thing we hired him for. I new that we would be the general contractor and would need to pay close attention to the work of all the subs including that of the general manager. So, I guess that means we're going to keep him. We will watch him, but we would watch anyone regardless.

Obed

 

[CurlyDave]

I've never heard of an air test that was done in 30 minutes. I've never done one on a drain line, just gas lines. I can tell you that a gas line test is done for twelve hours before it can be certied as leak free.

24 hours is the usual time around here.

Think about the volume of air in the drain pipes vs. the air in one of your tires. If you have a slow leak in a tire, how long does it take for the air pressure to go down by a measurable amount?

It seems to me that the total volume of your drain pipes is larger than a tire, and I have had nails that took several days to leak down 1 or 2 psi.

 

[MJ's Design guide]

I have cracks in driveway, bucked wood retaining wall, separation of home from garage with one inch gap, and a city storm drain under concrete driveway
with a wet weather creek flowing through it, and city that owns the easement.

To me it seems apparent that there are leaks in this storm drain, but city engineers come out and say no its fine. I am not here when they do.

The wood retaining wall supporting this concrete driveway is 24 years old, and buckles on verge of collapse because of way water is flowing. the culvert wings aren't long enough and water going around rather than through the drain, taking down the wall.

They blame driveway cracking on old wall, and that the storm drain is fine. No leaks. How do I test otherwise?

Its a complicated storm drain problem that the city doesn't want to address.
I think there are holes, but don't know how to prove it.
Any guidance would be helpful.

 

[MotorSeven]

What's the point of pressure testing a drain line? Drain lines don't carry or hold pressure. I understand filling with water & checking for joint leaks before covering with crete. Pressure just seems like overkill.......

RD

 

[EddieWalker]

Adding air pressure will help in finding a leak. If there is a slow leak, then it could be very dificult to find. You can squirt the pipe with a water/dish soap solution and the air will create bubbles where it's leaking. Air pressure and soap is a real easy way to speed up the process of finding the leak.

I've only done this once, and it was on black iron pipe in an attic. I sprayed the joints until I found the problem. I took it apart, put on more pipe dope, and got it as tight as I could. Problem solved.

Eddie

 

[mikefromnh]

My concern at this point is that if you are having to oversee this construction manager to this level to make sure that your drains lines aren't leaking, what else are you in for down the road? This is basic stuff, but important stuff.

Don't want to pour salt on the wounds, but this is all stuff a good GC would take care of. How much work are you missing to deal with these minor issues?

Good news is you are almost out of the ground, if your framer knows what he is doing it should get easier.

Find a good trim sub and check several references.

 

[LogChain]

Obed,

It is my feeling that small air/water leaks in PVC drain lines generally present few long term problems. Sure they may keep you, the guy ultimately responsible for their consequences, awake at night worrying, but a couple of flushes of the aftermath of a turkey dinner (or the equivalent) will plug those minute leaks. If designed properly, drain lines (with the exception of traps) see only intermittent liquid flow and almost no (< 1 psi) pressure. Relax, there are more important challenges ahead. Enjoy!


- LogChain

 

[EddieWalker]

Two things can happen with leaks in drain lines. One, you don't know how big the leak is, or how big it will get. Over time, it could become a major source or moisture. This could be anything from tap water, to solid waste. Since we don't know where the leak is, or how big it is, it's foolish to make an assumption that it will seal itself over time.

The second thing that can happen to a drain line with a leak is that roots will find it. First they seak out moisture, and from there, they work their way into the pipe itself. Here, where allot of homes were built with clay pipe for drain lines, it's very common. With PVC, it's rare, but it still happens. Especially with thinwall drain pipe. Once that root gets the tinniest bit of itself into your pipe, it starts to grow. This takes years, but once it's started, there's no undoing it. You'll never even know it's happening until you start to notice that the water isn't draining like it used to. If you are lucky, it's outside the house and accessable to dig up. If not.....

While there might not be a leak, from what I've read, I wouldn't go any further until I was 100 percent sure of this. It's too simple and easy to make sure of it right now. There is nothing so pressing moving forward on a house that a day or two wont make a difference. There's going to be allot of other delays anyway, mostly because of weather and conficts between the subs and supplies. It's part of building a house. I'd take the time to do a proper air test and know without a doubt that there isn't a leak of any kind. I wouldn't rely on a guy who said 30 minutes if enough, and I wouldn't rely on anybodies warrentee or guarnatee. Both are meaningless ten years from now when you cant' flush your toilet and the block is under the concrete slab.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

On a side note, I wanted to express to Obed that my critisism is meant to be helpful ,and hopefully I can offer ideas, or points of view, that you might not have considered.

I've read everyones replies, and it sort of seems like they might be ganging up on you, but it's just everyone being concerned and sharing what we're thinking. We're not there, we don't know your conditions or even your plan. While I can only speak for myself, I think the others would agree that it's very stressful to build a house, and having to hear a bunch of critisism during the process doesn't help with that stress level, but it's all intended to be helpful during this process.

I know that when I post a thread on a big project, I always appreciate what everyone has to say, and find allot of the comments to be very helpful. We never know enough, and if you get just one suggestion that solves a problem that you never thought of, then it's all worth it.

Eddie