Crack P Trap on Upstairs Shower

Had some guests in town who used our guest shower (which we have maybe used once in like 4 years) and there was water pouring out all through the ceiling in the garage. Opened up the drywall to see the P trap is cracked in half. A plumber came out and quoted about $2k to fix which seems crazy high but I dont have a good feel on plumbing prices as I have never really dealt with these issues. Curious if that seems reasonable or if anyone knows of any DIY solutions that I could do myself.

 

JB WELD makes an H2O product, and I bet it will work because it's not under pressure.

I would try and identify the cause before I attempted to make repairs... is it touching the particle board?

 

That's a good suggestion. I am curious the cause as well, the plumber mentioned that here in AZ he has seen this before with showers that get very little use, not sure how accurate that is. The pipe is about one inch away from the board.

 

2 grand seems high.

If you’re proficient with your hands, do it yourself.

Cut it out, leave room for a coupling and rebuild the entire Pee trap with elbows and add couplings at each end, before attaching the whole piece at each end.
Some stores will even have the pee trap as a kit, minus the couplings.

 

Is it possible they put too much pressure on it when they jammed it on in there and it stress cracked?

 

Never seen a failure like that, but $2k is robbery. It’s about $30 in material and and hour of work for a real plumber.

 

Does the shower pan/floor flex while standing in the shower? If so is most likely the problem as PVC does not absorb flexing well. Floor of shower needs to be stabilized/reinforced to eliminate duplicating this problem going forward.

 

^^^ This. ^^^

 

The house isn't even four yeas old yet either, just another item on the long list of crap work done on this house.

 

I really appreciate the diagram, I think I am just handy enough to pull something like this off, thanks buddy!

 

Like others said, you can tackle this yourself or at least call around for better pricing. That price is ridiculous. But if you’re willing to pay that much, I’ll do it for half that

 

From what I can see in the pictures, It almost seems like they stress the trap when the installed it. Easy fix, like was said above $30 in parts. However you do not have PVC pipes. Yours are ABS. Make sure you buy ABS fittings and the proper glue for ABS. Again you have ABS pipe not PVC.

 

Not that I can tell but it is a bathtub/shower so kind of hard to tell

 

Noted, thank you!

 

2K is an I don't want the job price. Looks like it froze, thats the only time I've seen a p-trap do that.
You have it opened up so access is easy. I would JB weld it and call it a day. Sand it real good to rough it up and 5.00 later, you're done.

Anohibian is correct, that is ABS

 

As a building inspector, I see a lot of plumbers install shower pans in homes without setting the tub/pan on a bed of mortar. The weight of the person taking a shower flex’s the pan/tub towards the sub floor putting pressure on the PVC traps. That might be your issue. Easy way to tell is stand in the pan/tub and see if it flex’s or if it seems ridged.

 

Did your guest share a shower?

 

Account for the flex with Flexible Pvc Coupling.

 

good option if an access panel is used.
not to code if there is no access.

we should always build or remodel to at or above min. code

 

That’s like 45 minutes of work and less than a 100 bucks to fix. Real question is what caused that to break? Is your floor rigid under the shower. That looks right at the point where it would break were the floor moving up and down due to people’s weight. Just a thought.

 

I see that you're in AZ, so it's a long shot, but it definitely looks like it froze Can you recall a cold snap between the last time that shower was used and now? Easy to happen if above an unconditioned garage with insufficient insulation. Perhaps your door was up for an extended period of time during the aforementioned cold snap?? Water just sitting in a trap and never moving... Also agreed that your plumber did not want the job for some reason. Cheap/easy enough to do it yourself properly (as Hightide mentioned) with a little bit of youtubing.

 

I'm not a plumber but I would definitely do that myself. ABS and ABS cement is easy to work with. If you can fix your sprinker system, you can do this.

$2000 is larceny unless there is something we cannot see going on.

I broke out the slab in my basement to move a tub drain a few inches last fall. $2000 would have been a rip off for even that job.

 

I think there is a little bit of flex I can feel when I walk around the tub up there, but its hard to tell. I wonder if thats why they have these little support pipe pieces put in under these other two pipes in that area?

 

We did have some cold nights this past winter with a couple freeze warnings I believe, being a Phoenix native I have never dealt with freezing pipes before but this is over the garage like you said with little insulation around it so that could be possible.

 

I doubt it was a freeze issue. We barely hit freezing, and your garage should have enough residual heat to keep everything adequately warm within the walls and ceiling.

The pics you’re showing point to flex issues, so that could be a little more work to fix correctly.

 

Might have to institute a weight max for using the guest bath/shower . But I do want to get it fixed correctly, the only other times we used this before was when my wife would take a bath, I wonder if all the water in the bathtub could have put enough weight to flex and start cracking the pipe?

 

You could stand on a ladder and watch/feel the pipe while your wife walked around the tub, you might be able to tell if there is flex in the pipes.

 

Not that it hasn’t been done,
but I’ve never seen plumbing cinched down with spacers vs suspended for give on any house I’ve owned.

 

My advice would be remove that strapping and the “support pipes” and then have you or your wife watch while the other of you walk around in the shower. If you see a lot of flexing, that needs to be resolved.

I bet you a quarter that you see a lot of flexing. Those idiot plumbers probably did what they did to shore up the plumbing and make the shower floor appear more rigid. I imagine any rigidity comes from your piping, which is why it cracked.

 

I am in Chandler, used American Plumbing & Rooter for a water heater replacement a couple years ago, Rich is honest guy and answers the phone on the weekend.

Looking at the second pic with the P-trap support, something might be off with the install. Looks like you have two drains feeding from above, shower/toilet or shower/sink into a single drain pipe. Your plumber's price may be correct, did he provide a written quote or just the price for the job?

We had a leak issue in our upstairs shower, damaging drywall, plywood, tile, carpet and furniture. The builder's (Shea) plumbing sub did not seat the shower pan correctly and we ended up with leak about 4 months after we moved in. The repair work was significant, tub removal, mold remediation, drywall, etc., house was under warranty, but it was a PIA.

I agree with others, a simple P trap replacement is easy and inexpensive. But I suggest getting to the root cause as others mentioned as it will likely fail again if it's not addressed.