Up sh*t creek...

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65LoveAffair

65LoveAffair

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I mean that more literally than figuratively. The main sewer line in our house is clogged. No matter what faucet is run, water backs up through the floor drain into the laundry room. Same if we just flush the toilet. It doesn't just stand, though. It still drains slowly. There's also a lot of air that bubbles out through the floor drain when we flush the toilet. We pulled the toilet tonight because we needed to replace the wax ring anyway. We snaked the toilet line while it was up. Put all 20' of our handheld snake in, and didn't hit a thing. Tomorrow we are going to see if we can pull the cover off the floor drain and snake it from there. Hopefully we strike oil in the process, because if we can't clear it ourselves, that's the only way we'll be able to afford a plumber. Any advice? Our house doesn't have an outside clean out like newer houses do. We just have the floor drain and the pipe where our washing machine drains in the laundry room for access. And the house sits on an slab. Thanks in advance for any pointers you can offer.
 
Ouch, have the same problem in California. A professional snake ,is needed here.(several households,run the same main line). Paper products down the toilet,are a problem it my neighbor hood.
 
Yeah, I'm hoping we can clear it with the snake we have. It's not a huge drum auger, but one of those handheld kind that you hook a drill to. We can't afford a plumber right now. God only knows what we'll do if that's what it comes down to.
 
65LA,
You got a local Home Depot? Go and see if they have a "Tool Rental" area, and see if they have a powered, 100 foot snake! I bet if they do, you can rent that thing for around $50 for the day and let 'er rip! If the little 20 footer didn't work I'd say the 100 footer may.....BE worth it if you get it, without the cost of a plumber! Get good heavy gloves, (They should be able to point those you ought to have for the job), and go through the smallest to the biggest drains in your house, EVEN those floor drains!

Yep this is a difficult one and I BET the clog is right at a pipe junction! You'll feel it when it hits the clog! it will bog down a little...

Hope this helps!
 
65LoveAffair said:
I mean that more literally than figuratively. The main sewer line in our house is clogged. No matter what faucet is run, water backs up through the floor drain into the laundry room. Same if we just flush the toilet. It doesn't just stand, though. It still drains slowly. There's also a lot of air that bubbles out through the floor drain when we flush the toilet. We pulled the toilet tonight because we needed to replace the wax ring anyway. We snaked the toilet line while it was up. Put all 20' of our handheld snake in, and didn't hit a thing. Tomorrow we are going to see if we can pull the cover off the floor drain and snake it from there. Hopefully we strike oil in the process, because if we can't clear it ourselves, that's the only way we'll be able to afford a plumber. Any advice? Our house doesn't have an outside clean out like newer houses do. We just have the floor drain and the pipe where our washing machine drains in the laundry room for access. And the house sits on an slab. Thanks in advance for any pointers you can offer.
Click to expand...

Take a garden hose
 
Your sewer drain should NOT be hooked into the floor drain system! I agree to rent a snake from a rental shop, but there is still something very wrong with your home drains being tied into your floor drains!! Geof
 
Do you have a clean out "t" outside the house? Would be located where ever the drain pipe exits the building...
 
inkjunkie said:
Do you have a clean out "t" outside the house? Would be located where ever the drain pipe exits the building...
Click to expand...

There are a couple of spots in the laundry room where we have access. The vent line coming down from the roof has a spot with an access cover. This is where our washing machine drains into the line, but we can get in there. On the other side of the laundry room, is another little access cover. This is where our kitchen faucets drain out. Our house is an old postwar prefab that my grandfather had built in the late 40s. There is no outside main line clean out, unfortunately.

I'm almost thinking that we actually have a clogged vent, because our lines do drain. They just drain REALLY slow, and while they are draining they back up a little. We don't have standing water anywhere at the moment. But here's my thinking: If the main vent line is blocked, there's nowhere for the air that is displaced to go, so it shoves the waste back through the pipes until things slowly drain out themselves from the other end. Does that make any sense?
 
Sort of....there should be more than one vent though. Our 1 bath house has 2, one form the bath and one form the kitchen area. Are you on a septic or city sewer? If septic, when was the last time it was pumped?
 
Could be as simple as a big ole hair ball stuck in there, I have to snake ours every 5 or so years because of that. I go through the roof vent since our inside cleanouts are cast and the piece you remove broke. Pretty cheap to rent a snake and not really all that much for a roto rooter guy either.

The not so simple reason may be that you have roots that have broken through your pipe and are now making a dam. You need a guy with one of those snake cameras to verify that and figure out where it is. If that's the problem you just need to dig it up and patch in some new line. I use "just" rather loosely, it can be a lot of digging if you don't have access to a backhoe.

Good luck
 
Rob said:
Could be as simple as a big ole hair ball stuck in there, I have to snake ours every 5 or so years because of that. I go through the roof vent since our inside cleanouts are cast and the piece you remove broke. Pretty cheap to rent a snake and not really all that much for a roto rooter guy either.

The not so simple reason may be that you have roots that have broken through your pipe and are now making a dam. You need a guy with one of those snake cameras to verify that and figure out where it is. If that's the problem you just need to dig it up and patch in some new line. I use "just" rather loosely, it can be a lot of digging if you don't have access to a backhoe.

Good luck
Click to expand...

Might be going out on a limb here...and just going off of what the a**hat that plumbed ours told me....if the drainline is oriented the wrong way the joint will act as a catcher of sorts. The square lip of the internal pipe is hooking things....
 
We are on city sewer, not septic. There is only one main vent that goes up through the roof. The laundry room sits in between the bathroom on one side and the kitchen on the other. The drains from all three kind of collect there under the laundry room. As far as where exactly the sewer line exits our house, I really have no idea. I know where the water line comes in, but not where the sewer line exits.

67 Power Wagon said:
65LA,
You got a local Home Depot?
Click to expand...
The nearest Home Depot is 45 miles away. However, the nearest Home Depot that does tool rentals is around 100 miles away, up near Chicago. We can't afford the gas to get there and back, and then get there and back again when we returned the tool, let alone the cost to rent the tool in the first place. I agree, though, if we could that would be the ticket. They have all kinds of powered augers and remote cameras that would work great. Thanks for the suggestion, but it's just not feasible for us at the moment.
 
Sorry, I'm not much help for this issue.


But I can offer a little humor for you...

[ame]http://youtu.be/TijTwg7VK9A[/ame]
 
If everything makes the drain back up, then the problem is downstream of the drain that's closest to the main drain exit to the house. I would try from that drain and see if you hit a clog. If not, you can rent a snake from the rent all place.
 
Well, we got into the floor drain, and it's a mess in there. I won't post a picture, because I know none of you want to see that. But I think we may have found access to a clean out, because under the floor drain cover, inside the bowl that drops into the sewer line, is another, smaller, access cover with one of those squared off spots that you can turn with a pipe wrench. The problem, however, is that it is all rusted over. I don't know that we could even open it up if we wanted to. We've cleaned off as much of the rust and other crap as we can, and we've got it down to as close to bare metal as we can. Should we even try to get a pipe wrench on this and attempt to open it? I don't want to snap anything off and possibly put us in an even worse situation. Thanks again for all the advice.
 
Soak it DOWN with PBlaster and let sit and repeat. Also tap on it around the perimeter with a hammer to loosen it up and help the PBlaster soak in. Keep doin that and it will come loose. Then after you unclog it, clean the threads REAL GOOD on both pieces and coat the threads with a good thick coat of automotive RTV like Permatex. Use RTV, not pipe dope. The RTV will both seal it and keep it from rusting closed again. Pipe dope dries out over time.
 
I'm sorry but I tried to help earlier but had problems getting in the site. Take a garden hose and feed it into the floor drain. If you can get it through the trap great, if not it will still work. Pack an old wet towel around the hose and floor drain and holding it tight have someone turn the water on. If it's a clog this will usually clear it. If it doesn't it could be roots or a broken tile or fitting. If you have a junk hose that you can cut the male end off of you can usually feed it all the way out to the city main to clean the line. If you have an older home the sewer tile are probably clay and roots can get inside easily. If a newer home with PVC sewer you should be good with a cleaning. Your floor drain is cast iron and the plug is ductile iron and the two usually don't rust together badly. Do what Rob said and PB Blaster it over night.
 
75Sport said:
I'm sorry but I tried to help earlier but had problems getting in the site. Take a garden hose and feed it into the floor drain. If you can get it through the trap great, if not it will still work. Pack an old wet towel around the hose and floor drain and holding it tight have someone turn the water on. If it's a clog this will usually clear it. If it doesn't it could be roots or a broken tile or fitting. If you have a junk hose that you can cut the male end off of you can usually feed it all the way out to the city main to clean the line. If you have an older home the sewer tile are probably clay and roots can get inside easily. If a newer home with PVC sewer you should be good with a cleaning. Your floor drain is cast iron and the plug is ductile iron and the two usually don't rust together badly. Do what Rob said and PB Blaster it over night.
Click to expand...
:wack:
I can tell, there`s not a plumber in the bunch! okc was fairly close, rrr was in there a little too, most of the other ones were shots in the dark. first off, it does sound like a mostly plugged drain, not a vent problem. second, you can`t go down thru ur washing machine drain-as there is a ''should be 2" p-trap at the bottom of the stand pipe. if ur floor drain is cast iron, the plug should be brass, not ductile iron, it could even be pvc if it has been changedby some one. does ur house have studor vents in the attic? if not there should be more than one vent exiting the roof, "if" ur grand pa or who ever plumbed it new what he was doing, unless all the plumbing is bunched up real close together and not scatered all over the house(a lot of distance between fixtures). you can take a small torch and heat the clean-out plug inthe floor drain(get it hot!), that way u won`t be trying to shove ur snake -garden hose or what ever u use thru the floor drain trap. and it is supposed to be hooked in w/ the house plumbing! if that doesn`t work, ur going to have to find the spot that the trunk line exits the house. dig it up, make a hole in it drill-it or whatever(depends on the mat`l ) if it is clay tile u can use a masonary blade carefully to make a small hloe, of the old-old fashoned way and chipp it very slowly a bit at a time w/ a sharp little chisel an a medium size hammer. careful, u don`t want to break that pipe! use ur snake both ways, in toward the house and out toward the yard---u still might need an auger type sewer machine!--if u have to u can bend some scap metal that won`t rust quickly and fashion a cover for it to keep dirt out of it, obviously a clean out tee would be better!---good luck-----bob
 
famous bob said:
:wack:
I can tell, there`s not a plumber in the bunch! okc was fairly close, rrr was in there a little too, most of the other ones were shots in the dark. first off, it does sound like a mostly plugged drain, not a vent problem. second, you can`t go down thru ur washing machine drain-as there is a ''should be 2" p-trap at the bottom of the stand pipe. if ur floor drain is cast iron, the plug should be brass, not ductile iron, it could even be pvc if it has been changedby some one. does ur house have studor vents in the attic? if not there should be more than one vent exiting the roof, "if" ur grand pa or who ever plumbed it new what he was doing, unless all the plumbing is bunched up real close together and not scatered all over the house(a lot of distance between fixtures). you can take a small torch and heat the clean-out plug inthe floor drain(get it hot!), that way u won`t be trying to shove ur snake -garden hose or what ever u use thru the floor drain trap. and it is supposed to be hooked in w/ the house plumbing! if that doesn`t work, ur going to have to find the spot that the trunk line exits the house. dig it up, make a hole in it drill-it or whatever(depends on the mat`l ) if it is clay tile u can use a masonary blade carefully to make a small hloe, of the old-old fashoned way and chipp it very slowly a bit at a time w/ a sharp little chisel an a medium size hammer. careful, u don`t want to break that pipe! use ur snake both ways, in toward the house and out toward the yard---u still might need an auger type sewer machine!--if u have to u can bend some scap metal that won`t rust quickly and fashion a cover for it to keep dirt out of it, obviously a clean out tee would be better!---good luck-----bob
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the plug IS iron. Or at least steel, but I'm betting iron. In any case, it's magnetic, so that rules brass out. I've been hitting it with PB Blaster and then a BFH and a cold chisel, but so far all I'm doing is putting some nice gouges in the plug and not much else. As far as finding where the pipe exits the house, that might be easier said than done. We've got a concrete porch on the front of the house and most likely it exits the house under that porch. I would imagine we could probably dig up my wife's flower bed in front of the porch and see what we can find. We have to be careful, though, because our water line comes in right about in the same area as well. About how far down would it be buried? Thanks for the pointers!
 
I think its great your willing to help the guy bob. Insulting everyone else isn't necessary. A few on here are licensed tradesmen.
 
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