gcadmes
Jan 5, 2010, 12:45 AM
There's been so many plumbing issues with my house during 12/2009, I don't know where to begin, so forgive me for the length of this help request; I confess at this point I am desperate!
I’ll start here; I’ve lived in this house now for 6 years, and it’s 23 years old.
On December 9th 2009, out of know where, my washer while draining caused my downstairs toilet to overflow (lowest point); huge mess. Called plumber #1. Instead of snaking my 2 cleanouts in the front yard, he chose to snake the 2” washer drain pipe, a 20 minute job, plus, he charged by the job, and pulling a toilet would have cost $265.
The problem is, he didn’t wait around long enough to reproduce the error. Six days later, December 15th, same thing happens, except this time, 100% of my living room has a ½ inch layer of crap on top of my slate tile. While at work, I called Plumber #1 back out and invoked the warranty from the first service. While racing home from work to investigate, my wife was suckered into paying $100 more for snaking my master bath shower because, apparently the water was coming up though that drain as well. I argued that he’s just pushing the problem from one pipe to the next, and then he tried to explain to me some foolish story about how my house was plumbed. (He stuck around longer the 2nd time to see if he could reproduce it.)
On December 26th, eleven days and countless loads of laundry later, it happens again, crap filled the downstairs living room. (Did I mention that shop vacs are worth their weight in gold?). I don’t understand how the drains can work for a few days, and then just stop working abruptly.
Anyway, I called the same plumber for the 3rd time, then minutes later cancelled and decided to take matters into my own hands and snake my own toilet, and cleanouts in the front yard. Mostly because the *warranty* mentions that holidays are not covered by warranty repair. Therefore, I rented a 75’ snake, and a few hours later, all worked great. It seemed that pulling the toilet, snaking it, snaking the two cleanouts in the front yard, and the 2” cleanout in the backyard fixed the problem…. Well, it didn’t.
At this point, I am beyond frustrated, but appreciating that I am learning a few simple plumbing tasks.
Late in the evening on December 31st (we stayed home), I decided to wash some clothes and, sure enough, the toilet started bubbling, so I shut off the washing machine. The next morning, I called my dad, we drove to home depot, rented a 100’ snake with 3” a tree-root cutter bit, discovery bit, and scrapper bit. Before snaking anything, I climbed on my roof(not recommended) and hand-snaked the laundry vent, after which I shoved the garden hose down the laundry vent and let the water run for a few minutes; so far so good. Instead of pulling the toilet next to the laundry room, we focused our attention on the two cleanouts in the front yard; two 3” pipes. Its 47 feet from the cleanouts to the curb. It was difficult to get the snake started In the sharp 90 degree bend, but I eventually go it started and proceeded to snake all the way to the sidewalk about 40’. That’s as far as I got; both cleanouts completely blocked. After pulling the snake back out, I looked at the bit and it had wet clay-like mud on it. So I knew we had a serious problem.
On January 2nd, I called the DWP and left a message. Today January 4th, the City inspector came to my house, he called out their contracted plumber, the plumber sent the video camera down the two cleanouts in my front yard, and discovered that the pipe was broken in several places, right at the sidewalk. Lucky for me it was the City’s problem. I took lots of pictures and the plumbers left a copy of the video with me.
They finally finished up at around 7pm. Before leaving, the plumbers did a quick inspection of the rest of my house and discovered that I have a fresh water leak in my front garden area, the area just outside the font-of-house window, and the *flapper* just after the 90 degree was broken and wasn’t working properly. I didn’t even know what that was or what it was used for. He said that it needs to be replaced asap, and that job would cost about $500, which doesn’t seem too bad considering how much work is involved.
After the City plumbers left, I decided to turn the washing machine back on, and was totally perplexed to hear and see the adjacent toilet start to bubble, and then fill up with water.
The plumber said that my *flapper* could be causing the blockage if it’s malfunctioning, and hinted around to a quick-fix. He basically said that if I can get to the flapper and remove it, that should fix my toilet bubbling problem. So off I went, the only problem was, the cap on top of the pipe, about 1 foot from the cleanout opening, was so tight, that I had to use my hole-saw drill bit to get inside the drain pipe. I made several ½ holes, until the hole was large enough to pull out flapper. After removing the flapper, I simultaneously turned the washing machine back on, and flushed the problem toilet; ran back outside and expected to hear/see water passing through the pipe via the hole I just created with my cordless drill; nothing, not a drop.
After scratching my head and crying in my beer for a few minutes, I decided to turn to the web and see what I could find. I’ve read though hours of posts from you, and it is clear you know a whole lot more than the plumbers I’ve hired. So I was hoping if you could suggest something I haven’t tried yet.
My fear is that the blockage is a broken pipe between the problem washing machine and the two cleanouts in the front yard.
Thank you for your time, also, I’ve put the video on YouTube, if you care to see it, I will reply with the address. It’s about as boring as watching paint dry.
Hopelessly drunk!
I’ll start here; I’ve lived in this house now for 6 years, and it’s 23 years old.
On December 9th 2009, out of know where, my washer while draining caused my downstairs toilet to overflow (lowest point); huge mess. Called plumber #1. Instead of snaking my 2 cleanouts in the front yard, he chose to snake the 2” washer drain pipe, a 20 minute job, plus, he charged by the job, and pulling a toilet would have cost $265.
The problem is, he didn’t wait around long enough to reproduce the error. Six days later, December 15th, same thing happens, except this time, 100% of my living room has a ½ inch layer of crap on top of my slate tile. While at work, I called Plumber #1 back out and invoked the warranty from the first service. While racing home from work to investigate, my wife was suckered into paying $100 more for snaking my master bath shower because, apparently the water was coming up though that drain as well. I argued that he’s just pushing the problem from one pipe to the next, and then he tried to explain to me some foolish story about how my house was plumbed. (He stuck around longer the 2nd time to see if he could reproduce it.)
On December 26th, eleven days and countless loads of laundry later, it happens again, crap filled the downstairs living room. (Did I mention that shop vacs are worth their weight in gold?). I don’t understand how the drains can work for a few days, and then just stop working abruptly.
Anyway, I called the same plumber for the 3rd time, then minutes later cancelled and decided to take matters into my own hands and snake my own toilet, and cleanouts in the front yard. Mostly because the *warranty* mentions that holidays are not covered by warranty repair. Therefore, I rented a 75’ snake, and a few hours later, all worked great. It seemed that pulling the toilet, snaking it, snaking the two cleanouts in the front yard, and the 2” cleanout in the backyard fixed the problem…. Well, it didn’t.
At this point, I am beyond frustrated, but appreciating that I am learning a few simple plumbing tasks.
Late in the evening on December 31st (we stayed home), I decided to wash some clothes and, sure enough, the toilet started bubbling, so I shut off the washing machine. The next morning, I called my dad, we drove to home depot, rented a 100’ snake with 3” a tree-root cutter bit, discovery bit, and scrapper bit. Before snaking anything, I climbed on my roof(not recommended) and hand-snaked the laundry vent, after which I shoved the garden hose down the laundry vent and let the water run for a few minutes; so far so good. Instead of pulling the toilet next to the laundry room, we focused our attention on the two cleanouts in the front yard; two 3” pipes. Its 47 feet from the cleanouts to the curb. It was difficult to get the snake started In the sharp 90 degree bend, but I eventually go it started and proceeded to snake all the way to the sidewalk about 40’. That’s as far as I got; both cleanouts completely blocked. After pulling the snake back out, I looked at the bit and it had wet clay-like mud on it. So I knew we had a serious problem.
On January 2nd, I called the DWP and left a message. Today January 4th, the City inspector came to my house, he called out their contracted plumber, the plumber sent the video camera down the two cleanouts in my front yard, and discovered that the pipe was broken in several places, right at the sidewalk. Lucky for me it was the City’s problem. I took lots of pictures and the plumbers left a copy of the video with me.
They finally finished up at around 7pm. Before leaving, the plumbers did a quick inspection of the rest of my house and discovered that I have a fresh water leak in my front garden area, the area just outside the font-of-house window, and the *flapper* just after the 90 degree was broken and wasn’t working properly. I didn’t even know what that was or what it was used for. He said that it needs to be replaced asap, and that job would cost about $500, which doesn’t seem too bad considering how much work is involved.
After the City plumbers left, I decided to turn the washing machine back on, and was totally perplexed to hear and see the adjacent toilet start to bubble, and then fill up with water.
The plumber said that my *flapper* could be causing the blockage if it’s malfunctioning, and hinted around to a quick-fix. He basically said that if I can get to the flapper and remove it, that should fix my toilet bubbling problem. So off I went, the only problem was, the cap on top of the pipe, about 1 foot from the cleanout opening, was so tight, that I had to use my hole-saw drill bit to get inside the drain pipe. I made several ½ holes, until the hole was large enough to pull out flapper. After removing the flapper, I simultaneously turned the washing machine back on, and flushed the problem toilet; ran back outside and expected to hear/see water passing through the pipe via the hole I just created with my cordless drill; nothing, not a drop.
After scratching my head and crying in my beer for a few minutes, I decided to turn to the web and see what I could find. I’ve read though hours of posts from you, and it is clear you know a whole lot more than the plumbers I’ve hired. So I was hoping if you could suggest something I haven’t tried yet.
My fear is that the blockage is a broken pipe between the problem washing machine and the two cleanouts in the front yard.
Thank you for your time, also, I’ve put the video on YouTube, if you care to see it, I will reply with the address. It’s about as boring as watching paint dry.
Hopelessly drunk!