Our home is about 20 years old. We noticed water on our finished basement floor carpeting along a wall by a PVC drain line clean out. I felt above the clean out and it was wet, so I cut a hole above it at the ceiling. The line takes a 45 degree angle for about a foot and goes on top of the poured concrete foundation up through the first floor plywood. I can see black gunk on the outside of the pipe as it goes above the first floor plywood and the plywood is water stained, as well. Almost directly above the pipe on the second floor is a full bathroom. I'm thinking that there may be a leak in the second floor toilet drain that is causing this leakage. I haven't removed the toilet yet to check. Also, our power company mounted a control box on the siding outside in the same place where this pipe runs and used 2" lag screws. But I'm not sure the screws are long enough to puncture the pipe in the wall. Do you think the toilet drain is the likely cause, or the lag screws? If not, I'm interested in all other opinions. Thanks. Tim

Ok here's the situation. It's going to be a bit of a book, sorry.. :) My basement (mancave) is mostly finished, with a main "living room", 3/4 bathroom, and 'bedroom' (which I use as an office). It is a slab floor with carpeting. It was configured this way when I bought the house. Now, there is also a large "unfinished" area where the washer/dryer is, and another walled-off room where the HVAC unit is. There are two floor drains in this area (one of which is constantly in use from the A/C drain in the summer and humidifier drain in the winter. For the very first time since I've been here, I had a water intrusion into the 'unfinished' area. One particularly nasty storm dumped 5" of rain in about 20 minutes, and due to the wind-blown debris the gutters clogged, causing them to overflow down the side of the house, dumping right into the window well. The well filled up completely, and weight of the water pushed the window open and water just poured in. This is when I found out that the second drain (the one that doesn't get the HVAC water) is extremely slow. I wound up with over an inch of water that took a couple hours to completely drain. I tried plunging it but it did nothing, so I know now I have to have a plumber come to snake it. I told you that story to get to this story. In the 'finished' section of the basement, there is a 10x10 bar area, and behind the bar there is no carpet, and there is a floor drain with a 3' diameter 3" deep 'bowl'. Now I've never had any issues with this drain (I've never primed it), and I was going to simply find some kind of grate to fit inside the 'bowl' so it's not uncomfortable to stand in. But several days after the flood on the other side I started smelling sewer gas in the bar area. When I went behind to look, I noticed that there was silt deposits all over the 'bowl', meaning that the water had backed up into the bar. My best guess is that the slow utility room drain and the bar drain connect together upstream of the blockage, and only by chance it didn't overflow the bowl and ruin the bar and the carpeting around it. Now that this has happened, I don't want to take any chances. I want that drain permanently plugged and I'm going to fill the bowl with concrete so I can level the floor and put tile down. What is the best way to plug it that I'm never going to be haunted by it? Expansion plug? Pack it with concrete? Breaking up the slab to cap and remove it is not an option. I am also aware of their purpose, so I'm not looking for comments telling me it's a bad idea. Aside from the bar sink, there is no source of water on that side of the basement or the floor above. The windows on that side are above grade with no wells. So there is no reason to have a a drain there where it could possibly do damage. Thanks