Imagine your typical clawfoot tub… waste and overflow configuration. The waste pipe heads towards the foot of the tub, horizontal with a slight pitch. It meets the overflow pipe at a tee fitting. The waste enters the branch of the tee. The overflow comes in the top end. The bottom end goes thru the floor to the trap.
On one I’m doing, there is a desire to move the tub forward. The idea was floated to change the drain configuration. The waste pipe heads towards the foot of the tub as usual. The overflow pipe drops, but instead of going into a tee it goes into an elbow that turns underneath the tub. The elbow is connected directly to one end of a tee. The other end of the tee is the waste. The branch of the tee goes thru the floor to the trap.
Bonus points if you are still reading and can picture this.
By doing this we can move the tub 3″ forward. My concern is that the waste will overshoot the tee, hit the elbow, and then rebound back into the tee and drop thru the floor. Eventually this will foul the elbow. The drain will still work but the overflow will be dysfunctional.
Whaddya think?
Replies
If I'm picturing this right, the new installation will have a horizontal tee, with the straight runs connected to the overflow, and tub drain; the stub will drop vertically through the into the trap and waste line.
I don't see a problem with the tub waste over shooting, other than for the first moment when the plug is pulled, the waste will run up the overflow until the head is equalized, and might surge a short ways above the water surface in the tub, but not much. The only energy it has to use would be generated by the head of the water in the tub, so it can't get higher than that.
I'd be sure there was a bit of a slope to the tee from both the drain, and the overflow, and expect it to work fine.
I'm pretty sure you can buy this already in a kit if I'm understanding your description right.
The elbow is connected directly to one end of a tee. (Break in here and install a one-way check valve between the eL and the Tee.) The other end of the tee is the waste. The branch of the tee goes thru the floor to the trap.
Now when your client yanks the plug, the bathwater won't be able to backwash up the overflow's tailpiece. I don't really understand why that possibility worries you, but since it does, this ought to prevent it happening.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not brought
low by this? For thine evil pales before that which
foolish men call Justice....
It could work, maybe some water passing in the top of the over flow occassionaly would help keep things flushed.
There is no way in the inch or two that the water moves before it hits the t that it will have enough momentun to go up the overflow pipe and out the over flow.And clearly there is not enough static head..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Reread the post, Water passing in the top of the overflow This happens when the tub is to full.
What type of stopper do you have? Other than that it will be fine.