In article irVtb.170337$275.525842@attbi_s53, Loren Coe says...

not to take sides, but Jim appears to know plumbing, at least
from a serious diys'r point of view. i plumbed a two story
home but made sure that the main sewer was brought into the
basement, terminated in a vertical joint. no big deal, but
you have to buy a "sleeve" to do horz., _and_ know how to use
it. i may still have some oakum, probably 40yrs old now. --Loren

Not a sleeve, but an asbestos joint runner. It's a
thick rope of asbestos that wraps around the outside
of the cast iron bell, and the molten lead gets
poured in the top where the clip holds the rope tight.

Adding to this trouble was the fact that it was a
re-work of an existing reducer, that went from four
inch down to two inch CI pipe, and a transition from
there to copper. Plus, this house is so old it has
'standard weight' cast iron pipe - almost eggshell
thin by comparison to the 4X heavy weight, centrifugally
cast stuff sold today.

It's an old, whacky house but I've learned that if
something works, LEAVE IT ALONE, and I was sure that
an amateur plumber like me would mess this up somehow.

There is one guy that I would trust this job to, and
I was lucky to have him come over and do it for me
one day after work. I could not thank him enough,
and paid him more than he asked for doing the job.

Jim

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