Hi,

I am a do it yourselfer, who should sometimes let someone else do it. Anyway I had a clogged drain line, was a main coming out of the house to my septic tank, 3 inch in the basement going through the floor. I borrowed an auger machine from a friend with a 80 foot 3/8 cable. After running a length of cable about 25 feet into the line, I came to a hard going spot. After getting through this spot I tried to pull the cable out and now it's stuck. Reverse does nothing, pulling doesn't do any good. It didn't seem to kink the cable, as I had the cable in my hands the whole time while augering... but the possibility is there that it may have kinked and tied a knot in the cable inside the line.

Tomorrow I will dig outside and find the line going to the septic tank. My question would be... if the cable is knotted in the line, but under the cement floor, is there anything I can do besides break up the floor to get it out. Just looking for any suggestions that may be worth trying.

Thanks
Woody

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Originally Posted by woody1

Hi,

I am a do it yourselfer, who should sometimes let someone else do it. Anyway I had a clogged drain line, was a main coming out of the house to my septic tank, 3 inch in the basement going through the floor. I borrowed an auger machine from a friend with a 80 foot 3/8 cable. After running a length of cable about 25 feet into the line, I came to a hard going spot. After getting through this spot I tried to pull the cable out and now it's stuck. Reverse does nothing, pulling doesn't do any good. It didn't seem to kink the cable, as I had the cable in my hands the whole time while augering......but the possibilty is there that it may have kinked and tied a knot in the cable inside the line.

Tomorrow I will dig outside and find the line going to the septic tank. My question would be...if the cable is knotted in the line, but under the cement floor, is there anything I can do besides break up the floor to get it out. Just looking for any suggestions that may be worth trying.

thanks
woody

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Hi Woody,

Don'tcha just hate it when that happens? I've had that happen many times to me. I put the machine in reverse, grab the machine and cable and pull back as hard as I can. That usually gets it. But say it breaks instead? Not to worry! A "retrieval tip", (see image) that's just made for broken cables is available. Just go in and snag the old cable back out. Good luck and let me know how you made out. Regards, Tom

Tom,

Thanks for the tip's. I went to the stuck cable, after thinking all night about the problem... not really wanting to dig. So I grabbed the cable and pulled back as hard as I could, to my surprise it pulled free. I had tried this yesterday but not as hard as this time, because I was affriad of breaking the cable. I pulled all the cable back and at the cutter end was a large wad of roots. I then put on larger cutters and cleared the pipe to were it works fine now. Evereyone is happy especially me!

Thanks again
Woody