Mother Nature is being sarcastic with me. I went into basement, looking
for leaks from post-blizzard thaw currently underway. Instead, I find
puddle in furnace room (full of nasty things I won't describe), and 2
rotted slits in the bottom center of soil line from toilet, one on
either side of the wye leading up to the flange. Slits are very
straight-edged, almost look like they were done with a router.

I don't have the tools or the time to try to fix this myself this week
month, and my sweating skills suck anyway. Anybody wanna SWAG how much
a plumber is gonna charge me to replace 3-4 feet of copper? Bronze wye
under toilet, and another bronze wye under vent stack a foot away with a
cleanout (blocked by a framed wall) on the back side. Will they be able
to reuse these wyes? I figure it will be half a dozen joints overall
(unless they need to get into the vertical runs), a coupling and maybe
new wyes, and maybe even lifting the toilet and replacing the flange and
starting over. Open ceiling with decent access to the pipes.

To pacify plumber, I'm gonna give him my whole plumbing punch list (half
a dozen items, small to medium), and ask for an estimate for 'later'
work. I also plan to keep saying 'cash' when I talk to him. I may
eventually have all the basement drains replaced with PVC (which should
resist my crappy well water better), but right now only looking for a
good workmanlike spot repair, so I can get furnace room dried out and
start scraping up the filth. At least I don't have to pay golden time
for the work- stuff like this is why I insisted on a house with 2
bathrooms, and the one in the addition feeds into septic line outside
the basement wall and five feet lower, so it is safe to use.

Any useful ideas or sympathy appreciated. Rest of line doesn't show any
rot, but previous owner cleaned and shellacked it 6-7 years ago. Light
tapping along bottom didn't produce any 'dead' sounds.

--
aem sends...