Doug wrote:
Hi,
We just bought a house. It's an older house and the washing machine
drains right into a hole in the center of the floor. It appears that
sometimes that the water is taking longer to drain all the way through
so it's filling the area up where it's built to handle this and moving
on to other areas of the floor (and potentially going to cause water
problems with furniture and such in other areas in the basement).

Not sure of the right question to ask, but I'm curious as to whether or
not we could do something ourselves to maybe clean out the drain
(similiar to say using DrainO in a kitchen sink).

Also, roughly does anyone have any idea what kind of cost/time is
involved in making this so it doesn't drain into the floor but drains
underground some way?

Since it is an older home it is probably a 1-1/2 inch line. This is
too small to take a washer without backing up. Often in older homes
the washer drains into a laundry tub which acts as a resevoir while
draining.