Expert: speedball1 - 4/27/2004

Question
I'm in the middle of moving my wash machine from an interior wall to an exterior wall. It is on the bottom floor of our 2 story house over a crawl space. I assumed that the venting would occur up the main vent stack. Much to my surprise(I am not a plumber), when I ripped the wall open, the horizontal drain also went up to a stack on the roof. Would there be anything else above sharing this stack? Can I just cap this stack on the bottom and run a new short stack up the exterior wall and vent it vertically(about 8 feet up near the ceiling level of the first story).

Thanks for any advise,
Tim


Answer
Good morning Tim,  Kitchen sinks sometimes share a washer vent.  I wouldn't cap off the vent itself,  however if you wish to drywall over the old washer set up just cut the pipe that connects the trap to the drainage tee, remove the trap and washer stand pipe, and cap that off.  That way the vent is still useable.  Let me tell you what Stamdard Plumbing Code has to say about terminating a vent. By exterior wall you do mean outside the house don't you? Section 1404.4 of my code book states, "no vent terminal from a drainage system shall be located beneith any door, window, or any other ventilating of the building or of an adjacent building,  nor shall any such vent terminal be with in 10 feet horizontally of such a opening unless it is at least 2 feet above the top of such opening".  
Section 1404.5 goes on,in part, to say, " They shall be effectively screened and shall meet the requirements of paragraph 1404.4.  Vent terminals shall not terminate under the overhang of the building.  There is, however, another way to vent your washer without running a outside vent.  A Studor Spring Loaded Mechanical Vent may be just what your looking for. Check them out at. http://www.plumbingmart.com/autovent.html   Hope this helps and thank you for rating my reply.  Tom