[helplesswife]

We just bought a 1964 Ranch house. My husband spent the weekend installing a Garbage Disposal in our Kitchen. Today (24 hours after install) the Garbage Disposal food waste is backing up into both of our showers.....The bathroom and kitchen sinks drain fine. It appears that maybe one of the toilets are clogged, not sure if that is the garbage disposal or the kids.....Ugggg What is going on????:confused:


Please help this helplesswife!

[massplumber2008]

Hello HW...

Sounds like you have a main drain line blocked there...

How many bathrooms? Are they all acting up? Is there a bathroom in the basement? If bathroom in basement is this bathroom the bathroom acting up?

If entire main drain line is clogged you will want to find the main drain cleanout (front of house if city/town sewer, back of house if septic), remove the cleanout and then flood the main with water until you see water come out of the pipe. You will then rent a 5/8" to 3/4" large electric cable machine, buy some leather gloves and goggles and snake the main drain line to clear the blockage away.

If this is isolated to one bathroom then you may be able to find a cleanout in the basement and remove cap and snake the drain using a medium electric snake to clear the blockage. If you can't find a cleanout you may need to lift the toilet and snake the drain line from that point, or you could go up to FLAT ROOF and snake from a vent up there (if so put out enough cable to reach basement plus 15 feet or so).

Finally, if you just bought the place you may want to call the real estate agent and have them contact previous owners to determine if they have had prior issues with main drain line... such as root problems... If they don't disclose and you find roots this could be major issue for previous owner as they are required to disclose this history at sale of home!

Investigate a little more... let us know what you find.

MARK

[helplesswife]

There are 2 bathrooms. The first one closest to the kitchen has just a stand up shower, our washer/Dryer, sink & Toilet. The 2nd bathroom is directly on the other side of the wall and has the tub/shower, toilet and sink. All the sinks drain a tad slow but they drain, nothing happens when we flush the toilets (no gurgling in the showers, etc.. ) We do not have a basement. Also why would this show up 24 hours after putting in our garbage disposer? Could this mean that the pipes in the house can not handle the disposer? When you talk about the main drain clean out, we are on city water so I take it, it should be in the frount of the house. What does it look like? Is in it in the ground, under the house, etc... How exactly do we flood the main? Do we run all the water in the house, do we shove a hose up the main line?? We have a home warranty that only cost us $50 a visit, should I just call them and let them handle it... My husband doesn't know anything about plumbing and such and he tries so hard, I just hate to see him get even more frustrated. Thanks for taking the time to help this helplesswife try and figure this confusing and frustrating stuff out! Lol... I sure do appreciate it!

[massplumber2008]

HW...

If I understand this... you said, " Garbage Disposal food waste is backing up into both of our showers."

You also said, "It appears that maybe one of the toilets are clogged, not sure if that is the garbage disposal or the kids"


So it appears that the toilet is not an issue anymore? GOOD!!


This suggests that the clog is isolated to the shower drain piping. This pipe must also serve the kitchen sink.


I would recommend that you go rent a small hand-held electric cable machine and snake out the shower drain. Use leather gloves and goggles.

Take the snake and send it down the shower drain. There will be some resistance to this as the shower drain has a PTRAP immediately at inlet to drain. This requires you to spin snake and push down on cable to get past the trap. After you are beyond the trap the rest of snaking drain goes easy!

To confirm all this just run the shower and drain the sink until the drain backs up in the shower. Once there is an inch or so of water backed up I would snake the drain so that when you hit the clog it will show up and start to drain the water.

Most likely some old crud got dislodged when installing disposer and worked its way down drain to cause this clog. Should be an easy fix.

Let me know how you make out!!

MARK