I just poured bleach and boiling water down all of my kitchen and bathroom drains to help keep them moving as I am waiting for a plumber (they are slow but not stopped up). I just went into the bathrooms to run water into the pipes and noticed that my toilet area felt hot... I lifted the lids and there was hot water in there!

Is that normal after flushing all the drains with boiling water?

There was no high water level, it looked normal and the cleaner I had put in the toielts earlier was still clouding the water.

What does this mean?

I flushed the toilet and it was normal. Please any thoughts very appreciated :( .

Hi STRESSHEAD!

Well.. yes, it's normal when you pour boiling water down drains that are backing up... ;)

So, system did indeed turn out to be biger issue than sink.. huh? I would tell you to just wait for the plumber to get out there and tell you exactly what needs to be done...

No more boiling water down the drains.. ok? Boiling water should not be introduced to your drainage system in large volumes. Not good for plastic pipes!

I know you are stressing, but at this point bleach is in all the drains and can only get on the plumber now... hopefully not in his eyes. Knowing he is coming over.. put away chemicals and just wait to see what happens from here!

Keep us posted.. ok?

MARK

THanks Mark... my property management is not being very helpful... and things are getting a lot worse!

Thank you for your advice... I will tell the plumber that I did this (I am turning to desperate measures now lol) and get him to put some safety eyewear on just in case so I don't blind the poor man.

I found a whole bunch of rocks and stuff in my shower drains... :(. Things are not happy around here. I am getting very over renting... can't wait till my own hous eis finished. I would have had the plumber there days ago..

Last question I promise, do you think I am OK to shower etc or should I abandon ship until I can get a plumber?

Last thing I want is backups all over the show!

Shower should be fine.. sounds like it takes large volumes of water to cause issue... I'm not sure what rocks are about and I won't speculate at this point as that will not help you in any way.

Get that plumber there and use water as you normally do. If backs up again, then I would reduce water use to minimum.

Keep us posted... appreciate it.

MARK

Thanks so much, your help is wonderful and the support is very appreciated.

I rang the after hours number of my PM and apparently they will ensure someone comes out tomorrow (still my beating heart at the sight of a steamy sauna--toilet), so I'll post after the plumber has been and share all the gory details ;). I'll have a quick shower and wash the dishes in a weeny bit of water... and I won't do any clothes washing... the not-quite-dirty clothes pile will get a frolic lol.

My real estate manage a few houses in my area (I live in a new housing estate, just built) and the rocks in the drains has happened to a few houses apparently, from the building process, and the lines weren't cleared afterwards. I hope that is all it is and a good main line cleanout will fix it... and I am DEFINITELY going to read up on this site more often and LEARN about my own house lol... so I am armed with at least a little knowledge to recognise stuff like this in future.

Yeah I guess the bleach and boiling kettle idea was a bit daft... lol!

Lol, yeah I know, ANOTHER post from me... but forgive me... I am shaking my head at how badly my plumbing has been screwed up... and honestly, truly wondering how it is even working... at all?

Every single floor drain in my house is full of sand, yellow brickie's sand, right to the floor level (how stupid of me to never have noticed this in four months.. ) Plus all sink and shower pipes have a certain amount of the same in the trap and I suspect beyond.

So go on, humour me... how on earth is my poor plumbing not backing up everywhere (well... yet. Eventually I am sure it would).

How are my showers not backing up? How are my toilets flushing? How come I just have soap bubbles emerging from drains and not water or sewage?

I am genuinely interested to learn how this is working :). To a completely non-handy woman this stuff is fascinating... I may end up handy yet.

SH...

All in all sounds like issues there for sure... All I can say for now is to talk to the plumber and see what he says... sounds messded up in a few places, but may not be as bad as it appears.

See what happens then pop back and let us know... we are gla dto go through anything you are unsure of...

MARK

To get that much sand in your drains sounds like sabotage to me. Maybe there was a strike or something during construction. Other than that I can't think of how this much sand could get into the system, the building inspector would have seen this on his final inspection. Someone got in there after the inspection.

As promised... results!! :D

Plumber came yesterday, the main line was completely blocked up with rocks and sand. It is going to be a 2 day job to fix it up, they are coming back on Tuesday to finish up. Nothing going down was visible through the sewer inspection thingo, it was all backing up in the main line with nowhere to go.

He snaked the main drain line on one side of the house, the other service point is under the pavers (?! ) so he has to dig under there and get to that to snake it out. He is bringing his apprentice with him because he has skinnier arms to get into the trraps inside to pull out the rest of the rocks ;) . The floor drains are going to be fun to clean out, I reckon that is going to make a grand mess in my bathrooms lol.

But... everything is draining as it should be, we are free to wash clothes (bliss!) and shower without stress lol (more bliss). Plumber could not believe how much rubbish was down the drains! It was tiling grout and such that was blocking up the traps, and limestone rocks, looks like no-one covered the drains and then washed all their stuff off in there.

He said I may still have some bubble issues because of the way the sinks are plumbed to drain into the shower drain, so if a fair bit of detergent is down there it may rise up sometimes but it isn't anything like it was. He said he doesn't like sinks plumbed like that but nothing I can do about it, just don't build my house this way.

I think perhaps the building super was asleep when he did this job, because when we moved in the lights and power weren't even connected up properly! (Glad I am not building through the same company as this house now lol).

I think before we move into the house we are building up the road it might pay to have all the main lines checked out BEFORE we move in... :rolleyes: :o .

Thank you sincerely for all of your help and advice, you stopped me completely freaking out (plumbing problems are a germaphobe's worst nightmare! ).

Thanks for the update! Glad it's not your house!

Good luck with the new house!

MARK