Bought my home 6 years ago...keep smelling dank odors coming up from the basement, discovered the drainage from the toilet to the septic was never vented through the floor/walls to the roof. There is a short 5-6inch stack just below the floor, leaving me with only 2 inches there. How to I vent this properly without having a pipe running through an upstairs room or hallway. Looks like no matter where we vent this to our roof, the pipe from the toilet to the septic isn't under any walls or closets to hide it. I wanted to be able to put a vent free propane heater down there if the furnace isn't working in emergencies, and I realized an open flame down there could be dangerous because of the gases coming from the septic and this pipe. How did this pass inspection?! How can I vent this damn pipe out horizontally, safely?

Thank you all for your valuable input. This morning I used a Rotozip to cut out a drywall spot that's a little larger than my thumb. Oddly enough, there's insulation in there. (I guess to block the sounds from the other side of our ZLL home.) Upon moving the insulation aside with my finger, I could see a bizarre shape for black PVC. A little more poking revealed that this is the one of those "directional T's" that throws water in the correct direction of flow. The "T" is mounted horizontally so it forms a "T" when looked at from below. If the previous owner had moved the hook 1cm away from the wall or cabinet, no damage would have been done. Bah!!! Instead, the hook penetrated right where the junction of the "T" is curved from one side. My head is going to rotate. I'll try a combination of the points mentioned above. Roughing up the edges before using any kind of primer or cement to give it something to adhere to, possibly shoving a plastic screw with cement in the hole once I get it to the proper size, etc. If this had happened on an ordinary section of straight pipe, it wouldn't be so bad. But this had to be in the narrow armpit of the "T". Too bad I through away the hook that used to be in there. ;-)

I realize that this is an old thread but I want to respond for anyone with a similar problem in the future. I am amazed that someone would tell you to hire a licensed plumber for such an incredibly easy job. Come on, folks! Have we become so helpless? When I read the question, I assumed it was about copper or galvanized pipe which would be very easy to fix too but then I saw it's PVC pipe. Nothing could be easier to fix and I have no idea why the person asking the question thinks he cannot remove the elbow. Of course you can remove it! You can simply cut it out with a hacksaw and put in a new elbow. You can extend the pipe that is cut off easily with just a union and a piece of PVC. Working with PVC is so incredibly easy that I am baffled about why the question was even asked. A proper repair would take about ten minutes and cost a couple dollars. I never cease to be amazed by how helpless people are becoming. This is pretty sad.

When I installed a Dreamline pre-fab shower base, the directions were to leave an opening in the concrete that had about 3-4" open around the drain pipe. I got the pipe aligned as well as I could, and then set the base in place and pivoted/moved the trap and pipe slightly so it would line up with the hole in the shower base. We then cemented the pipe joints so they would stay in place and the pipe would stick up through the hole in the base. When we set the shower base it had thinset under it to keep it level and supported, but directions said we did not need to fill in the area around the p-trap with cement. That part of the base was reinforced and it was just left with a base of sand. The drain fitting in the shower base was installed before it was set in place, and as we set the base in place a rubber collar slipped over the 2" pipe that stuck up from the P-trap. There was a threaded inside fitting on the flange in the base, and as you screwed the fitting down with a special tool (supplied) it expanded the rubber collar so that it fit tightly over the PVC pipe. Then we trimmed the top of the PVC pipe and popped the decorative grill into the drain. My point in explaining all this is that if you use a similar design shower base, and you have a 2" drain line, you would only need to jackhammer a small section of concrete out to install a 2" P-trap, and would only have a very small section of concrete to replace. However, if the shower drain pipe is 1.5", you have a lot more work to do if you want to meet code. Bruce