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Heathcliff

wrote:
The pipe drains fine although the angle is slightly the wrong
direction. If I choose not to replace, the issue is where the pipe
comes out of the wall. Need it to be at least 5 inched to the left.

wrote:
I'd base the course of action on whether that galvanized pipe is
obstructed. Does the sink drain rapidly ? Can you get a wire hanger
thru there ?

If it seems healthy I'd leave it alone. If it's a problem right now,
that is, water doesn't drain, it's probably because the galv. pipe is
corroded down to where only a trickle of water can pass.

I'm pretty handy but I'd call a plumber cause of the junction of that
pipe with what probably is an iron stack, assuming it's an old house.

The PVC pipes and galvanized pipes are interchangeable in terms of
couplings -- in other words they use the same sizes and threads. So
yes you could take off the coupling and put a different one on,
although whether you could save 5 inches that way is hard to tell from
the photo. Sometimes you can get creative with drain pipes, loop it
around and so forth to get the geometry you need. Extra bends are not
good practice, of course, but as long as they don't clog up they won't
really hurt anything. Or you could take out the galvanized pipe,
replace it with PVC, and make everything nice and neat. How handy are
you and do you have the tools you need? One way to get comfortable
with the task is to go the hardware store, pick up some of the
couplings and play around with them, see how they go together, and what
different kinds there are. If you want to remove the galvanized pipe,
you will need a pipe wrench and perhaps a good amount of
strength/leverage to get it started. There is always some possibility
of disaster -- the pipe breaks or worse yet, breaks the cast iron stack
-- when dealing with old pipes. Personally I've had good luck though.
-- H