What a Bad Plumbing Job!!

[missmanors]

My new neighbor hadn't paid much attention to the plumbing under the kitchen sink before buying her home a few months ago, but when her sink failed to drain yesterday she asked my husband to take a look and see what was wrong.

What he found was the worst plumbing job he'd ever seen. The drain pipes didn't simply go into a trap and then down through the floor as he expected. Those pipes actually went to the trap and then took a sharp turn to the left, going about 4 1/2 feet then UP about a foot, back close to the trap and then finally down to the floor!! No wonder her sink was unable to drain!! A build-up of grease, food particles, etc. made that 4 1/2 foot section of drain pipe heavy enough to use for dumbbells - and may I say that dumbbell pretty much describes the person who installed it in this home.

A person saving money by doing simple plumbing jobs himself isn't a bad idea -but with all the information available online and in libraries for free, why wouldn't that person look for the correct way to do the job if he/she doesn't know how it should be done? Before you do any work on your flip, do yourself a favor and consult with some experts, if you don't personally know any experts, take a few minutes to check online or in your local library. There are vast amounts of information out there that will bring you that much wanted cash you are looking for when you do sell your flip.

[JodiB]

I had a similar experience with a home I purchased recently. I had the water turned on upon closing and it started raining in the living room! The person who had tried to flip the house before me (had no clue what they were doing and got in way over their head) had tried to do the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom themselves. They had pipes going up, over, down, over, up again, etc. And to top it off, they hadn't even connected the water supply to the toilet (hence the rain in the living room). Needless to say I was calling San Francisco Plumbers immediately. What a mess!

If they had simply gotten a plumbing for dummies book, or done a search on google, or gotten on a forum like this, I wouldn't have had this headache and pain in the wallet to deal with!

[missmanors]

You are so right! There are so many ways to research how to do a simple plumbing job that it's ridiculous that these bad plumbing jobs even exist. Turn on the television on any given day to see someone telling you how to correctly put in some type of plumbing. I don't know why these people didn't take advantage of all this information.