Shower Drain Question.......

I have a slow draining shower drain. It's been this way for quite a while and has slowly gotten worse. The j-bend was rotted out and I replaced it about a year ago with schedule 40 PVC after transitioning from the copper coming straight down from the tub. A little ways after the j-bend, it transitions back to the copper for about a foot and then feeds into the cast iron stack. I'm thinking about removing the copper completely after the j-bend and running PVC into the cast iron hub. I'm thinking that where the copper joins the cast iron hub is where some build-up might be. Is that usually the case? Here is a picture of how the copper goes into the hub. This fitting that is in the hub appears to be sealed in with some type of putty because I can chip it out. I guess that's better than lead if I'm going to replace this. Was using putty "acceptable" at one point vs. lead? The house is about 45 years old but I'm not sure if that is original construction or not. I'm thinking about first running a small pipe down in that copper pipe to see if it is clogged at that hub. If I can't get it effectively unblocked, I'd like to replace it like I said.

I'm assuming there is some type of hub adapter available to connect the hub to PVC?
Thanks.

Shower Drain Pipe Hub

Copper is very smooth and great for drains, even somewhat bacteriostatic.
I have taken out many old drain lines that were remarkably un-scummy.
I recommend snaking the thing.
Putty was never an approved substitute for lead and oakum, but a few companies made a plastic based sealer.
Depending on your supply sources, you might find an adapter to go over the hub, but that is not necessarily going to be available.

Ok, thanks. That's some good info.

Yeah, the copper was deteriorated after the j-bend so I had to cut it back far enough to get to sound copper. So my conern is that it will continue to rot out and eventually I'll have to get rid of all of it.

I measured the outside of the iron hub and it's about 3.58" in diameter. Not that it means anything but at least I know that. There are a couple good plumbing supply places in town so if it comes down to it, I can see what they have. I've seen those neoprene grommets used when transitioning from an iron hub to PVC but they are always used in a vertical situation. So I'm assuming those will not work in a horizontal entry like this? But I'll see if I can snake it out first.
Thanks.

If you pull that hub out of the cast iron you might be asking for trouble unless you can lead it back in. You can do it two different ways. Cut the copper back from the 2" hub about 2 inches and put in a 2" copper X 2" plastic no hub band. Or the way I did them was cut all the copper off at the 2" hub and buy a 2" plastic to plastic no hub band. One side of the band goes on the 2" hub and the other goes on the plastic. You have more to tighten on to this way. If you started digging that sealer out you might want to get some liquid lead like Breplum said and put around the joint. Hope this helps you.

Ok, thanks. More good info! No I haven't started digging out that sealer. I just poked at it with a screw driver and it's soft enough to get out if I had to. That's a good idea to use the no hub adapter and just clamp onto the 2" hub as that seems very solid. Curious what kind of issues I could run into by digging out that 2" hub-assuming I could even find a 3 1/2" to 2" no hub adapter. But I guess there's no need to do that since the it seems to be sealed in there solid.
Thanks again.

TomFOhio said:

You have more to tighten on to this way.

Click to expand...

What exactly did you mean by this? There's only about 1/2 of the 2" portion of that hub. I'm guessing you mean that's it's heavier there and won't collapse?
Thanks.
BTW, I measured where the hub steps up and it measures 2 1/2". That portioon has about 3/4" to work with.
Thanks.

Can you post a larger picture of that fitting