Old Abandoned Pipe With Iron-Brass-Lead Components?

cubicacres

We noticed this foot or two of abandoned pipe near the ceiling in the basement of our 1900 apartment building and were curious about it. It looks like an iron waste pipe, with a brass sleeve for a few inches, then steel or lead at the top before being pinched/crimped closed at the top. A smaller feed pipe is on the left side.

Has anyone seen something like this before, or have any guesses as to what the materials are/what it would be used for historically? The building was a Schlitz beer tied-house/saloon before being converted into apartments during prohibition in the 1920s.

JUGHNE

Assuming it is 4", looks like a WC lead drop into CI.
However if there would have been a WC above it, there would usually always be evidence of floor hole or leakage.
Floor may have been replaced?

The brass/copper sleeve, I have never seen one before, maybe was the transition adaptor to oakum/lead joint to keep from distorting lead as the oakum was tamped in.

The side inlet may have gone to a tub, or lav wet vent.
It may have been continued to be used and the lead top pinched shut as an attempt to seal off sewer gas.

EdTheHeaterMan

Hay @JUGHNE That would be my guess also. The larger section is Cast Iron and the smaller pipe with the branch is definitely lead. It is amazing what you find in old buildings. Are there any old labels or beer bottles there? Collectables?

Those old "Speak Easies" are fun to work on. I have been in 2 that I know of near Atlantic City NJ. I believe Nucky Johnson visited one of them regularly.

mattmia2

i suspect they just abandoned it when they put in the new floor up there and just bashed the lead down out of the way. I think that ci is the new work tied in to a piece of brass wiped in to the old lead stack in the wall when they reworked the drain in the basement at some point, possibly when it got hooked to a city sewer or when they city sewer got changed.

JUGHNE

I have seen very little lead piping.
But can imagine how workable it must have been.
Bend as needed, even into a P-trap.
Bring the 4" lead up thru the floor and peen down the edges to the floor....no floor flange needed.
Just lag bolts that would rust away for the next 50 years and rot out the wood floor.
There is a handy retro gasketed floor flange that will fit inside the lead and hopefully there is enough wood meat left to screw down the flange.

We did have a lot of water supply "lead gooseneck" starter connections at the UG mains.

mattmia2

I understand it was common to use a pre formed lead bend to get from the toilet to the cast iron stack long after cast iron and steel were used for everything else because you could bend it to work it in to the joist space.

Ann Arbor also had a lot of lead "goosenecks" where a section of lead pipe was formed to make the transition between the main and the galvanized service. The utility says they switched to copper in the late 20's.

Danny Scully

That’s a typical arrangement for a toilet into a stack. The side outlet was likely the vent, possibly a wet vent. The brass is the ferrule (soil adapter). What I think you’re seeing though is piping for a future bathroom that never was. The lead/brass looks in perfect condition. 

Jamie Hall

I just finished reinstalling a toilet into such an arrangement here...

JUGHNE

Jamie, did you install a floor flange into the lead?

Jamie Hall

JUGHNE said:

Jamie, did you install a floor flange into the lead?

Had to. This was a little weird -- a building on piers which had settled, and really made a mess of the old flange, but hadn't damaged the rest of the pipe nor the cast iron underneath. Worked like a charm... turns out 3 inch ABS just barely slides inside 4 inch lead. Got a really good seal.

cubicacres

Thanks-we found some broken brown glass bottle shards in the crawl space near what looked like a bottle/clothes chute into the basement across from the boiler room, several anthracite pieces of coal in the basement floor & backyard, and an A&P store brand empty can of beans from the 1920s-30s when we remodeled an apartment unit.

Here's a photo of the Schlitz beer ghost sign on the back that faced the railroad track & old streetcar brake factory across the street. The interesting building was one of the reasons we took the plunge and bought the place, starting our journey into working with single-pipe steam systems

JUGHNE

Probably evidence of an actual coal chute thru the outside wall somewhere in the basement.

Was it "made Milwaukee [great] or [famous]"

Jamie Hall

Famous.

And that's a great building! Well worth working on!

cubicacres

We noticed it originally was "The Beer that made Milwaukee famous", but in prohibition advertising the word beer wasn't allowed, so the sign was changed to "The Drink that made Milwaukee famous" as reflected on the updated sign on our building