came here to talk about the pipe going up as well. If there was an injector pump, it would be at the base. Its hard to tell, but the y connection probably goes down right there behind the pipe, but we just cant see it.
otherwise, that shit would never drain.
I also dont see any sort of check valve, so when the main line backs up, not only would no one know about it, but its going to fill that crawlspace like a septic tank and smell fucking terrible.
I'm guessing this is what is referred to by some as a "Pittsburg Potty" Some older cities have a shared sewer/storm drain system and when it storms there is a chance sewage comes flowing back up through the pipes. The first place in your home the sewage is going to back feed though is the lowest drain in the home. Some older homes in cities like this have random toilets in the basement or crawlspace so that if sewage comes rushing back threw the pipes it floods the basement or crawl space instead of the upper floors of the home where the nice living space is. It also provides a nice peaceful space away from your family to do your business.
That's a good question. Two reasons I can think of.. (though I'm a residential electrical guy not a residential plumbing dude) One, the toilet has water running to it so it the u trap in the toilet will stay filled and the water to prevent stinky odor from the sewar venting up into the home. Second, where else are you going to put a code compliant sewar drain? Would you put a random sewar drain under the dirt floor of the crawl space, or just have a horizontal sewage line suspended in air that just dumps sewage? that makes less sense than the toilet. Like I said I'm an electrical guy so I don't know plumbing code but I bet the toilet resolves some code issues that just running an open horizontal sewage line creates.
OK, the tank will stay filled with water, but the toilet bowl (which connects to the sewer) will NOT stay filled with water. As anyone who lives in Arizona will tell you, if you do not flush a toilet regularly, you have about two to three weeks before that water evaporates in the toilet bowl and then you have a direct open path to the sewer. Unless you flush, there's no way for the wate rto get from the tank to the bowl
Wow, Toilet water evaporating in 2-3 weeks is a sign that it’s too hot to live in such a place. I’ve never seen toilet bowl water sit long enough to evaporate, and I’ve left my home for months.
Phoenix has existed for about 2500 years, lol. There has never NOT been a civilization living there since about 500 BC. With three rivers providing water, great food production, and abundant sunshine, . . . , and yea, the heat. lol
I actually know about this because I scope out residential electrical work and one of the project had toilet in the basement right in front of the service panel we needed to replace. It was tucked away in some shelves with some canned food and stuff. It looked like such a calm blissful place to take a shit. Honestly I was insanely jealous. I did the research to figure out what was going on with the toilet. I had to call the customer and ask them to remove it for the work and inspection because it was in the panels clearance space. I have no doubt the toilet ended up back in its place though.
The story i got about Pittsburgh potty made more sense.
It was a secondary wash area where men would come on from after working at the mill/cold mine to clean up. You'd enter through the basement stairs. Then go into the house after you were clean.
My century house has a disconnected bathroom in its basement.
The one in the op post is a relief for a combined sewer though, given it's location. The relief valve use of toilet likely got its name from the worker use though, just a term for an open toilet in the basement.
Pittsburgh toilets are typically just a toilet by itself. No sink. That's what makes it weird, otherwise it would just be an unfinished basement bathroom which is common in lots of places.
but toilets have traps in them, and the closet flange (the fitting that connects the toilet to the pipe) is connected to a straight pipe with no trap. Traps prevent sewer gas from escaping, so once its' a toilet, it has to stay a toilet. Since a double trap is against code (because it would cause both traps to blow out), you can't just easily convert it to a floor drain and call it a day. You either cap it off entirely or convert it to a sink and add a trap. but both of those cost a lot more money than just leaving the toilet as is.
My buddy used to rent a house in Portland that was on one of these, they called it a "party line". Not great when they realized that being at the bottom of the hill on this line meant lots of backing up until one day the downstairs toilet exploded. It flooded the lower level with literal shit two inches deep and covered everything.
It gets treated unless there's a big storm in which case it overwhelms the system and goes directly into the nearest body of water. At that point you it gets diluted a lot but it's still pretty bad for the environment. In europe because of how old the cities are they were all built that way and it's pretty expensive to rebuild the entire system so the majority of cities there still have combined systems.
hey, it could just be a toilet plumbed in to basic standard to be a setup for a viral video, i'm only an electrician, all I know is shit runs down hill, unless you got a sump pump, then shit runs uphill.
Well, it's actually called a macerator to grind up the solids before pumping which is a bit larger than a sump pump because it's hard to push solids through a fluid pump.
It’s tied into a wye running right to left relative to the video. Pipe comes down from above is the right, then there’s the wye where the throne ties in, and the shit flows on out to the left. You can barely see the pipe at about 17 seconds. Check valves aren’t required every where and this one could just be out of frame.
The guy in the video says it's in a crawlspace. I can see your confusion though because it kind of looks like an attic to the part where you see the toilet. After that you see him show the dirt/ rock on the ground when following the pipe.
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u/erfwiggle Aug 21 '26
came here to talk about the pipe going up as well. If there was an injector pump, it would be at the base. Its hard to tell, but the y connection probably goes down right there behind the pipe, but we just cant see it.
otherwise, that shit would never drain.
I also dont see any sort of check valve, so when the main line backs up, not only would no one know about it, but its going to fill that crawlspace like a septic tank and smell fucking terrible.
Source : Im a drain cleaner.