Old tub drain.

Harvey Ramer

I haven't seen this before but it's really cool!

Harvey

Jamie Hall

C'mon, Harvey -- two out of the three bathtubs in this ark have those! They work just fine.

And I have three tubs in storage which have the same drains, if anyone wants the drains contact me.

Of course I've replaced the old lead drum traps under them... and the old fittings (with nice modern reproductions which have better valves...)

Harvey Ramer

Jamie. You have a couple seasons on me ;-) There's I lot I have yet to see! I like old stuff though. They really built things to last. Or, is it that we just see the things that lasted?

Harvey

BobC

A lot of the older stuff was overbuilt because there wasn't someone trying to "optimize" the cost structure. The result is it can be fixed easily when it does break and usually without breaking the bank - like a steam system.

Bob

icesailor

A "Bi-Transit Waste". About as illegal a fitting as you can get. Especially with the hand shower attached. Laying below the flood level rim of the fixture that now makes it a submerged inlet. Which is what the original fixture was.

The water used to come in where the overflow was/is. When you pull that middle thingy out, there is a hole in it that lets the overflow water out. The hole is at the same water level as the filled tub water. One reason that they are illegal is that they are disgusting. That thing some say about a bath. "Steeping In Your Own Swill". That outside pipe is full to the drain hole. If that drain is 75 years old, you will be sharing a bath with every person that ever steeped in that tub. No one ever cleans those.

If you don't have a cast iron stomach, don't pull the middle thingy out and look inside.

Harvey Ramer

I did pull it out ice. Everything is clean and tidy.

Jamie Hall

and cleaning it is one of the normal maintenance activities around here...

icesailor

Any place I ever worked in my life that had one, had never ever been cleaned. Not freaking ever. The owners didn't even know that that middle part lifted out.

RobG

Don't you just love the goo and the awesome aroma. Shampoo, dander, soap and dirty water......Mmmmmm.

icesailor

You mean dead skin. Not Dander. Dander is fine fur from furry animals.

SWEI

Call it what you want, but once it ferments a bit it gets pretty rank.

KC_Jones

It isn't just those drains that can get like that. My wife likes to put her hair down our bathroom sink drain. Doesn't matter what I say. It gets removed and cleaned every 6 months or so...that hair holds a lot of "stuff". To me it's not the stink or the look that is gross, it's thinking that everything that is in there came off our body or is a cleaning product we use on our body. Like when I worked at the restaurant and informed all my co-workers....remember everything in that stinky dumpster is the same stuff we serve to people. lol I have a strong stomach thankfully.

RobG

icesailor said:

You mean dead skin. Not Dander. Dander is fine fur from furry animals.

Actually dander is dead skin, hence the word "dandruff". Pet dander is just that, pet dander. Dander is the skin cells shed from the body of animals. So far as I know we are still animals?

delta T

Thats awsome! similar to a lav faucet that I have sitting on the front counter. We took this out of a sink from a customer who loves the older stuff. We did everything possible to get the old stems to work again, searched high and low for replacements, with no luck and after two weeks of devoted searching and tinkering she finally agreed that it was time for a new faucet. Had to replace the spout too, as the drain assembly was too corroded to fix. Found a pretty close repro match though! Here are some photos: We cut the stopper off so that we could put it on display, but it used to have the same thing, long extendsion down to stop the drain. I like that it still has the patent date of July 6th 1915. Makes me wonder what faucet that I have ever put in will still be around 100 years from now.....okay I don't wonder.

delta T

Oops here you go.

icesailor

RobG said:

icesailor said:

You mean dead skin. Not Dander. Dander is fine fur from furry animals.

Actually dander is dead skin, hence the word "dandruff". Pet dander is just that, pet dander. Dander is the skin cells shed from the body of animals. So far as I know we are still animals?

You're absolutely right. My bad.

Jamie Hall

delta T said:

Thats awsome! similar to a lav faucet that I have sitting on the front counter. We took this out of a sink from a customer who loves the older stuff. We did everything possible to get the old stems to work again, searched high and low for replacements, with no luck and after two weeks of devoted searching and tinkering she finally agreed that it was time for a new faucet. Had to replace the spout too, as the drain assembly was too corroded to fix. Found a pretty close repro match though! Here are some photos: We cut the stopper off so that we could put it on display, but it used to have the same thing, long extendsion down to stop the drain. I like that it still has the patent date of July 6th 1915. Makes me wonder what faucet that I have ever put in will still be around 100 years from now.....okay I don't wonder.

I am so glad to know that someone else has had trouble finding replacement parts for the old faucets. I'd love to, but they just don't seem to be there. There are some good repro replacements available, though -- but like you I do wonder if they will still be working a hundred years from now...

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

All that pipe before the P-trap is called the fouling area; kept as short as possible for the very reason that it stinks and the water seal is downstream and it can't trap the smell to the sewer side.

icesailor

Understand that that sink is probably older than most grandmothers we have. Not mine.

We Plumbers were taught the 7 ways of a trap seal loss. SAMOBEC
Syphonage
Aspiration
Momentum
Osculation
Backflow
Evaporation
Capillary Action

That sink, faucet and drain on tubs and lav's covers more than one of those with the right conditions. Possibly all 7.