Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - bathroom plumbing in basement

Help! We resently put in a toilet in our basement on a concrete floor.All installed flused it and all it did was go glug glug! Here we found out it needs a vent! How could anyone put in the fixtures or drains for all fixtures and not put in the vents when doing this? How do we find out, without having to jackhammer the floor? How will we ever find the trap for each?

All fixture drain lines must have traps and be vented after the trap. A toilet has a built-in trap and the main drain/waste/vent stack normally serves as its vent.
How far is your toilet from the main stack? It should be within five feet, depending upon the size of the drain line.
A sink will have a trap under the sink, and the drain pipe down usually has a vent pipe up from it.
A tub or shower should have a trap below floor level, and that drain line has to be vented as well.
The vents will be in the walls or ceiling and be tied into the stack that goes out of your roof.
You may have to open up a wall to find the vent lines.
However, before you do that, open up a clean-out plug or remove the toilet and snake the main drain line with a heavy-duty plumbers snake. It sounds like you may just have a clog in it. It may not be a vent problem.
Good Luck!
Mike

The other bathroom is on the other side of the house upstairs,there is a vent stack that goes out through the roof above the the bath and directly below that in the basement is the washer and dryer,the waser has to be vented through there right?Thanks for your answer.

The washer and all fixtures on that upstairs bathroom side of the house will be vented through the stack there.
If your basement bathroom is on the opposite side of the house, you will probably have to plumb another set of vents and a vent stack through the roof there.
You need to contact your Building Inspection Department for local code, permit and inspection requirements before proceeding any further.
Good Luck!
Mike

Thankyou for your reply we figured thats the way we would have to go. what we are doing is redoing the bathroom upstairs,and assumed everything was in and available downstairs.Not good to be without plubing while we are redong the upstairs.Also how hard is it to remove and old 2 piece surround tub circa late 1970's tub?

You probably won't believe this but I think we may have found our intake stack.I forgot to mention that we have a kitchen sink right above the bathroom drains for the toilet,sink and tub. A pipe runs from the kitchen sink,down through to the basement,then along the wall,down to the drains.that would also have to be vented too,right?Right off to the sideof the pipe running down the wall is a pipe sticking out,with a cover on it could that be it?

Could be.
The kitchen sink drain is probably 1.5", and won't be large enough of a vent for a bathroom, however.
You can use a sawzall to cut the old tub out.
Good Luck!
Mike

Hi --

Real quick question -- Is that tub cast iron? If so, the sawzall will be a huge chore...trust me, I've tried :) If it is cast iron, use a sledge (cover the tub with a heavy canvas drop cloth and wear eye protection) -- bang away right through the cloth and you will have it out in no time.

Hi --

Real quick question -- Is that tub cast iron? If so, the sawzall will be a huge chore...trust me, I've tried :) If it is cast iron, use a sledge (cover the tub with a heavy canvas drop cloth and wear eye protection) -- bang away right through the cloth and you will have it out in no time.

Thanks so much for answering my question.I guess this problem is only going to be resolved the the hard way.We also found out resently that this house was built by our local high school as a house building project too.Funny what you can learn about your house's history. :eek:

Too bad they didn't know enough to install a vent before they poored the basement floor:rolleyes:

Take a good hard look around in the basement for clean-outs in the floor. If you find any, remove the cap/plug and try flushing the toilet.

If you are really lucky, the toilet will flush adequately. If so, then figure out a path to vent that clean-out to the roof.

If you are really unlucky, the toilet will overrun into the basement from the clean-out. I doubt that will happen, but you never know...

I have left out the specifics for the time being. Go look around and (hopefully) find a clean-out or two.

Thankyou for your reply!:) Soory don't know what a cleanout is.Have one pipe close to the toilet downstairs that leads from the kitchen sink upstairs.As it comes down to the basement a small pipe leads from it,with a cap on it Then it goes to the floor,and under the cement floor. Just down from there,is a drain.There is also a pipe right in front of the toilet we assumed was the bathroom sink pipe.