[scotslass]

A friend of ours used a sewer snake in our drains as we were having really bad back up, and when he eventually hit something and managed to pull it up, it was a lump of ice.
Our toilet still does not drain, it overflows when the washing machine spins or when the kitchen sink drains, it all comes up through the toilet.

Is this a big problem with the ice, what does it mean

Thanks

[speedball1]

Where do you live/ How deep in your sewer? You still have a partial blockage. Go back and snake it again. Good luck, Tom

[scotslass]

We live in Montana, not sure how deep the sewer is, we did use a 25ft snake and we were nearly at the end of it, with the ice does it mean that the sewer line is broken, or is it just because we've had some really really cold weather

[speedball1]

Sounds like "really really cold weather". City sewer or septic tank? You may need a longer snake to reach the blockage. Good luck, Tom

[donf]

Do you have an outside clean out?

One concern that I have is wheter or not you drain lines are deep enough. You should not have ice clogging your drain lines.

Might I suggest that you get a plumber or Router-Rooter out and have them run a snake from the vent on your roof out through to your main drain line.

[scotslass]

It is city sewer not septic,

Well I will tell our friend to try snaking it again, and fingers crossed it works, but with the ice do you think there could be a brake in the sewer pipe
Our weather has been really cold this year, most mornings it has been below freezing and at the coldest it was -17 -22
Its warming up again now but if there is ice and the ground is still frozen it will be a while before that thaws out

[scotslass]

We have looked all around the house for an outlet cannot find one looked in crawl space too still couldn't find one, we do have a bathroom upstairs but we think that must be on separate plumbing as no problems with that

We have a roof vent on the part of the house where we are having the problems

[donf]

Well you already proved that a 25' snake did not clear the problem, so why re-snake the line with a snake that does not reach the sewer entry drain?

Could the pipe be broken, of course that is a possibility since water expands when it freezes, however, since the ice could move in either lateral direction within the pipe I doubt it.

By the way, how long is it from the sewer line to you main drain?

Tom, I hope I not poaching on your territory. Don

[Milo Dolezal]

You have to use proper size snake for cleaning main sewer line. That would be 3/4" snake that will reach all the way to the street. Snake cables come in 75' length to reach from Clean out to Clean out. ( Plumbing Code says that you should have clean out every 75'). Snake your friend is using is most likely small 1/4" or 3/8" snake that is not strong enough for your situation. You can go to Home Depot and rent good snake for $38.00 for 4 hours.

[scotslass]

your right I just looked and it is a 3/8" snake, I will got to our local diy store and see if they have something we can rent, we are about 65-70 miles away from the nearest home depot or Lowe's, all we have are true value or ace hardware