[norum]

I have a urnial that drains very slow and stops draining. The trap is clear so I pulled it off the wall and ran about 20-30 feet of rod in the pipe. The urnial right next to it runs great and I would think that they would be on the same line. The pipe in the wall runs in the direction of the other urnial. What is strange is that it plugs as soon as I run water in it and I know the pipe is clear because of the amount of rod I ran. Could it be the pitch on the drain is off? Thanks

Larry.

[massplumber2008]

Hi Norum..

I guess the first thing I do is to confirm that the urinal is OK after I have it off the wall by running a hose for a couple seconds... just to be sure, OK?

Then I would snake the drain like you have done. By your description, however, I'm going to guess that your snake is going into the horizontal pipe for a couple feet but then the snake goes VERTICAL up the vent instead of down the drain pipe like it should to clear the blockage.

Here, to fix this you need to know that in a few feet from the urinal connection is most likely a TEE fitting (vent out the top, drain out the bottom, and urinal on the run of the tee fitting) and you want to see if you can feel when the snake hits it. Then work your snake back and forth but only for a few more feet... back and forth multiple times back out from the tee fitting and then back into the tee fitting. In this manner you can be sure that at some point that snake will go DOWN the drain and not up the vent, OK?

They rent electric hand-held snakes and some come with a DROP HEAD snake tip... see image. If you continue to have difficulty you can use this snake head that automatically keeps the head in a dropped down position and simply increases the chances of that snake going down the drain.

For now, just be patient, snake in and out many, many times... should eventually work in your favor... ;)

Questions? Let me know...

Mark