Hi, I have had sewer problems for the past 5 months. They came out and snaked the lines twice and put in a clean out and the city changed my lateral. The snake worked the first time for 5 weeks and the second time it didn't but the city said the lateral pipe coming in was loaded with roots and changed it out.

The problem has started again. The toilet and water stop going down after a couple of minutes. If you shut off the water it will drain very slowly. I checked the clean out and the water is moving very slow. I have a very small house. The washer or kitchen are not effected. When I run them the water moves quickly through the clean out. There is about 20 feet of pipe under my house till the clean out from the bathroom. Is it possible it is roots under the house?

Also when the plumber came last time he put 2 wax rings on the toilet and I had tiled the floor and put one on before all of this. When he put the 2 on the wax was oozing everywhere. The toilet since this problem all started never really worked right. I had to flush 2 or 3 times to get everything to go down. The house was built in 1953. I am not sure what to do at this point. The plumber scalped me last time and he didn't fix the problem and would not return any money. I am relucant to call another. What do you think the cause is and is it possible to fix on my own. I can't afford to get it snaked every 6-8 weeks

Thanks for help!!

Maria

Hi Maria,

"When the plumber came last time he put 2 wax rings on the toilet and I had tiled the floor and put one on before all of this. When he put the 2 on the wax was oozing everywhere. The toilet since this problem all started never really worked right. I had to flush 2 or 3 times to get everything to go down."

What has happened is that the plumber failed to bevel the wax outward and when he set the toilet the wax squeezed inward and is now blocking the opening. The solution is to pull the toilet and reset it correctly.


For those roots, immediate relief and to kill the existing roots and prevent further growth you can purchase RootX or Robics Foaming Root Killer that contain Dichlobrnic.
A less expensive way would be to call around to garden supply stores and ask for fine grain Copper Sulphate. Put a 1/2 pound in your toilet and flush it down. Repeat in 6 months.
Good luck, Tom

Fixed it!! I bought myself an electric drain cleaner. I want from the clean out back into the house. It cleaned out the lines and got them flowing. I put the cutting bit on the second time up and got a ton of roots out the first try!! Everything is working better than ever now!! I will never call that plumber again. He charged me $750 for 3 visits out and fixed nothing. After all the research I decided to try on my own. Maybe if they had put the cutting tool on like I did it wouldn't have reclogged every 6-8 weeks. I will try putting the foam down now. Hopefully it will keep everything under control. My $200 investment was cheaper than the first visit from the plummer. I already made my money back.

Thanks for the help and advice!

Maria