Said It Here

Slow drip on sewer pipe joint

A damp sewer pipe joint or extremely slow drip discovered during renovations often indicates a seal beginning to fail. While minor dampness may have persisted for years without issue, the transition to active dripping prompts homeowners to plan for pipe replacement before major damage occurs, though fixing it requires disturbing finished basement walls.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Leave the joint alone if staying in the home and it is not actively leaking
  2. 2
    Fix or replace the section when selling the house
  3. 3
    Plan to replace the pipe or section with PVC before it becomes a major leak
  4. 4
    Throwing away the broken filter section and attaching the hand shower directly to the shower arm.

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/Plumbing3 people · September 2026

Due to some work in my basement I now can see this place closer where one of my toilets lead pipe joins the main sewer pipe. I know for sure that it looked wet when I bought this home 6 years ago, but only now I removed some walls and can see details.source ↗

What do you think, and what the fix will require in case I need to do it? The bathroom that this lead pipe goes to is finishedsource ↗

Apprehensive_I · r/Plumbing · 2 upvotes

Can these two still be connected somehow? Do I just need to buy a small adapter/fitting, or is the filter broken and I need to replace the whole thing?source ↗

Not very familiar with plumbing, so any help on what part I need would be appreciated.source ↗

om0107 · r/Plumbing · 2 upvotes

Since then, One of those wet-looking seals has started an extremely SLOW drip. Like one drop a week level of slow. I'm in the planning process to replace the cast iron pipe. No reason to wait till it actually leakssource ↗

veronus57 · r/Plumbing · 1 upvotes

By broken plastic piece I am guessing you are referring to the white thing? If yeah, how can I remove it? I tried using my finger and a screw driver, it didn’t budge.source ↗

om0107 · r/Plumbing · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised