This post gives advice and tips for replacing cast iron shower drains on a concrete slab foundation. Hammering into an old concrete foundation to replace a drain is the trickiest and most hazardous part of remodeling a vintage midcentury shower. Read on for tips on how to do this safely and sucessfully as part of a vintage home bathroom remodel.

One of the downsides to buying an otherwise fabu vintage home is inheriting the geriatric plumbing. It takes skill and precision to properly waterproof a tile shower using even the most modern waterproofing materials. Unfortunately, those materials didn’t exist in the 1950s and 60s. And, midcentury plumbers and tile installers were just as likely to be lazy as any rando contractor today. Doing a shower remodel on these slab foundation midcentury modern homes therefore often opens up a pandora’s box of plumbing trouble.

The Problem

Modern conventional shower drain assemblies are made of PVC plastic and look like this:

The bottom piece glues to the 2-in drain pipe, the middle piece makes a watertight mechanical seal with a vinyl or fiberglass waterproofing ‘pan’, and the top piece screws into the middle piece to adjust for height and make the drain grate (the only part that you actually see once the shower is finished) flush with the shower floor tile:

It wasn’t until the early 1980s that PVC drain pipes became the default for all residential home plumbing. Homes built before the 1970s all used cast iron drain pipes that connected to cast iron shower and bathtub drains. If you own a vintage home that still has an original 60+ year old cast iron shower drain, then you have a leaking shower problem.

Replacing a modern PVC shower drain attached to modern PVC drain piping is relatively easy even if the drain is set in a concrete foundation slab. Since PVC doesn’t rust, the drain bolts can be unscrewed and the whole assembly can be taken apart down to the base flange. There are then lots of options for attaching different drain types to this standard base flange, since the 4-bolt pattern is standardized to work with lots of other modern drain assemblies and adapters.

Replacing cast iron shower drains, on the other hand, is a real pain. Cast iron slowly corrodes over time. After doing many shower projects on midcentury homes in Austin, I’ve seen the whole spectrum of how an old-fashioned cast iron shower drain ages. And even the occasionally well-preserved vintage cast iron drain has a 3-bolt pattern that will not match any modern drain adapter kit:

There is literally nothing that you can bolt, glue, or otherwise attach to an old cast iron drain to easily replumb it for a new shower install. The only thing you can do with an old cast iron shower drain is rip it out and start over by booting a modern PVC drain to an intact section of the bare cast iron metal pipe underneath the slab.

So here are the four basic steps for replacing vintage cast iron shower drains:

1. Jackhammer to get access to the drain pipe below the foundation slab
2. Cut the drain pipe with a metal grinder or hacksaw (being real careful to not crack it)
3. Boot new PVC pipe to the old cast iron drain pipe with a no-hub rubber coupling
4. Replumb using a modern PVC conventional or Kerdi drain set to proper height

Seems pretty simple, right? Nope, not on an old concrete slab it isn’t.

The Danger

You can easily get access to the piping underneath an old cast iron shower drain if your vintage midcentury modern Austin ranch home is built on a pier and beam foundation. Unfortunately, almost all post-WW2 homes in Austin were built on concrete slab foundations.

Getting access to drain piping in a concrete slab foundation means jackhammering through the concrete. And hammering into an old concrete slab will risk popping pipes and creating even more plumbing problems.

There were no residential building inspections in 1950s Austin. Or in the now core neighborhoods of the 1960s and 70s that were then far outside the austin city limits. So you can never know what might be lurking in an old Atx concrete foundation slab before hammering into it.

For example, modern water supply piping runs in a concrete slab foundation build actually runs UNDER the slab. Also, modern plumbing inspection residential construction codes require minimum distances between supply pipes and drain pipes wherever they pop up through the slab. This is all to ensure that supply pipes won’t get broken in case a homeowner has to have unexpected drain work done on a slab foundation.

In the 1950s and 60s, on the other hand, it was common for lazy plumbers to run copper water pipes horizontally right through the middle of concrete foundations. It was real convenient to strap the supply piping runs directly to the rebar. Also, I’ve encountered several examples of copper water pipes run right next to drain pipe flanges (like, within inches). Penny pinching midcentury Austin plumbers also apparently liked to save on copper by taking real direct routes from water mains to bathroom faucets.

Minimizing Risk

When hammering into a residential concrete slab foundation that was plumbed and poured in the 1980s or later, you can predict with good certainty where the water supply pipes are and therefore avoid accidentally popping them with just a little bit of care and common sense.

However, concrete slab foundations plumbed and poured in the 1950s and 1960s are like a lost lid box of chocolates. Hammering into them always carries risk of popping a water supply pipe no matter how careful you are.

My own record (so far) on this is 12-1, which is something that I’m quite proud of. But I have experienced one popped pipe loss so far. Here’s a picture montage of what happened on that job:

As you can see, this shower had an old corroded 1950s cast iron drain that needed to be cut out. Unfortunately for me, there was a buried 1/2-in copper hot water pipe running right next to it right in the middle of the 8-in thick concrete slab. I did not predict that level of plumber laziness. And, there was no way on earth that the jackhammer wasn’t going to find and pop that pipe. Fortunately it was fixable, but still a bummer.

WINNING REQUIRES LEARNING FROM LOSSES

Here is another cast iron shower drain replacement project. This example shows how real careful jackhammering can pull a win from the watery jaws of potential popped pipe defeat. A past homeowner had already tried to “fix” this 1952 -vintage plumbing problem by replacing just the shower base:

You can tell from the mismatched tile work that someone tried to make the original leaky shower base “waterproof” by demolishing just the base, adding either a fiberglass or vinyl liner, and then re-tiling.

However, you can also tell just by looking at the drain grate that they didn’t replace the original cast iron drain. So, unsurprisingly, this shower was still leaking water into the walls and had to go. And this required finally replacing the old original cast iron shower drain.

Demolishing the floor tile and drypack concrete underneath revealed lots of water damaged wall framing. Demo also revelated an old iron shower drain in all of its grungy glory:

This is where the hammering begins. Replacing cast iron shower drains on slab requires making a hole through the concrete around the drain with enough clearance to dig around and carefully cut through the cast iron drain pipe underneath. So, you need to excavate an opening through the slab out to about 12 to 16-in from the drain.

Here are some tips for doing this foundation demo work VERY carefully:

TIP #1: TRY TO PREDICT THE SUPPLY PIPING LAYOUT

You can never know exactly where the horizontal water pipe runs are in an old concrete slab foundation. But you can at least make some educated guesses by opening up the walls to see where the pipes come up through the slab.

In this case, there were hot and cold 3/4-in manifolds in the wall at the sink location. There were only single 1/2-in hot and cold copper pipes in the wall at the shower faucet locaton. So, I figured that even the laziest plumber couldn’t have done any worse than simply running hot and cold pipes diagonally from the 3/4-in manifolds directly to the shower valves:

It made sense that there could be supply lines running along the blue lines. So I figured there was a pretty big triangular space in the slab (outlined in white) that would be safe for jackhammering demo.

TIP #2: USE A SMALL HAMMER

Remember that you can make guesses, but never know for sure exactly what’s lurking in a vintage midcentury home foundation slab. That’s why you want to use a SMALL pneumatic hammer for this delicate work. Demo folks normally use a big 70-lb “breaker” jackhammer for making holes in concrete slabs.

These hammers will make a nice big hole in even a rebar-reinforced foundation slab in no time flat. But they’ll also hammer a copper water pipe flat as a traintrack penny in half a second.

So, you really REALLY want to use a small 20-lb demo hammer for tricky jobs with unknown pipe locations:

A 20-lb demo hammer can still potentially pop a water pipe even if you’re working slowly and carefully (ask me how I know). But it will at least offer some added caution and safety compared to a full size breaker hammer.

TIP #3: GO SLOW (and shut off the water at the street before starting)

Demo for replacing cast iron shower drains on slab will take awhile. It will also be loud, dusty, and a literal pain. I worked six full hours on this job just to make this relatively small opening in the relatively thin 8-in thick slab foundation:

Going inch by inch through old hardened concrete takes awhile. First, you make a shallow donut-like excavation all around the drain out to about half a foot. You want to be VERY careful for this step. Do not jackhammer directly on or near to the cast iron drain or drainpipe itself. Old cast iron is very brittle. Treat it very gently. Only use a hand hammer and cold chisel to carefully knock out the concrete right around the pipe.

It’s the concrete slab further out from the drain that you can jackhammer a little more agressively. But again, BE CAREFUL and GO SLOW. For example, my piping layout guess on this job proved to be completely wrong:

Turns out there was a big ‘ol 3/4-in supply line right at the apex of the triangular area that I’d guessed would be completely clear of pipes. And it was buried right in the concrete, where the original plumber had hung it under the rebar before the concrete pour. A fullsize breaker hammer would have gone straight through it in a second. But I was able to avoid popping it by using a small demo jackhammer, going slow, and frequently using just a hand hammer and cold chisel.

Midcentury homes are like archeological digs. Demo them with care.

Slow and Safe for the WIN!

Replacing an old cast iron shower drain is simple once you’ve successfully hammered out a hole through the slab large enough to maneuver an angle grinder or simple hacksaw.

I use Kerdi for waterproofing custom tile shower installations. With the cast iron drain out of the way, installing a Kerdi drain was a simple matter of carefully cutting the original 2-in cast iron drain pipe at the appropriate depth and booting it to the PVC drain assembly:

Now it’s just a normal tile shower install project. I’m right now in the process of getting the shower tile ready (the whole project will be the subject of a future blog post). But here’s a sneak peek of the custom shower floor slope install and the Kerdi waterproofing install:

Hopefully this has been a helpful deep dive on replacing cast iron shower drains for tile shower renovations on concrete slab foundations. It is not a project for the faint of heart. But it’s not brain surgery. Cheers!