No plumbing decline in apartment building

[Thierry Van Roy]

So I've been looking at this aborted construction project and there are a million things wrong with it. One thing my initial inspections came up with and really bugged me was an exposed pipe which had NO decline (it might even be defying gravity).

Yes, whoever did this turned it into a disaster and yes, the contractor is in bankrupcy. So no, I can't hold him liable anymore (can't pluck a chicken with no feathers).

What I don't know is how the other plumbing has been done. Some is under hardwood floors, some is sealed under concrete.

My inspector couldn't get underneath the concrete, so my question:

How can I check the entire plumbing and what would fixing this cost me?

Are there inspectors who use X-rays or something to make sure? Suppose I wouldn't have to go through concrete (the hard floors need to go, different story), Is there an easy fix or will this be a total redo?

What am I getting myself into here?

Would love to hear anyone's thoughts, because this decline thing is new to me, especially in this large a project (18 large units, 5 floors).

[Jon Holdman]

By "decline" I think you mean the fact that drain lines are supposed to be sloped down at least 1/4" per foot. And some of them in this building aren't. This can be checked with a sewer scope. That's a camera that gets pushed down the sewer pipe. These are typically used for main line inspections. But as long as the camera is small enough for the pipe in question, could be used in lines inside a building. You would have to run water into the lines. Then the scope. If everything is correctly sloped, there won't be any water anywhere in the lines. If there are any low spots, you'll see them on the scope.

The proper fix would be to redo the badly sloped lines. Low spots are troublesome because the water pools there and gunk collects and causes clogs.

Concrete is no big deal. If there's a problem, you figure out where. There locating devices that you use along with the scope to figure out exactly where the camera is and how deep it is. You bust out the concrete where you need to, fix the line, then pour new concrete. Been there, done that.