[Sam Hill[_2_]]

This is a sketch showing where the drains are in the house. Typical 60's 3BR tract home. No special reason - just wondering where all the feeders connect to the main. Right now, the washer and kitchen sink both are slow, so I'm guessing that the washer connects to the sink and then to main.

http://i.imgsafe.org/cf248683d4.gif

I'm wondering how to find out how 1 & 2 on the sketch are connected - under the house, outside.

Also looking for the main cleanout. Other houses in the track have them at 3 and 4 on the sketch. The one in the outside wall at the kitchen goes down and then toward the garage, but I can only get 10 feet of snake to go down before it his a sold blockage - I'm guessing a tee, but don't know.

Thanks!!

Sam

[Sam Hill[_2_]]

"Sam Hill" wrote
This is a sketch showing where the drains are in the house. Typical 60's 3BR tract home. No special reason - just wondering where all the feeders connect to the main. Right now, the washer and kitchen sink both are slow, so I'm guessing that the washer connects to the sink and then to main.

http://i.imgsafe.org/cf248683d4.gif

I'm wondering how to find out how 1 & 2 on the sketch are connected - under the house, outside.

Also looking for the main cleanout. Other houses in the track have them at 3 and 4 on the sketch. The one in the outside wall at the kitchen goes down and then toward the garage, but I can only get 10 feet of snake to go down before it his a sold blockage - I'm guessing a tee, but don't know.

Thanks!!

Sam

PS -- I'm guessing at how all the drains are connected. Only thing I know for sure is when the washer is draining, the kitchen sink starts to back up. All the other drains are fine.

[Danny DiAmico[_3_]]

On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 08:23:33 -0800, Sam Hill wrote:

PS -- I'm guessing at how all the drains are connected. Only thing I =
know for sure is when the washer is draining, the kitchen sink starts to =
back up. All the other drains are fine.

My sister's old house (before she moved in with us) had the exact symptoms
you describe, which was always solved the same way.

In her case, the kitchen is attached to the garage where the washer was and
where the garage slab was two (maybe three) steps below the kitchen floor
(which is over a crawl space).

In the crawl space the washer pipe comes in through a hole in the concrete
blocks which edge the garage and meet the kitchen drain at only a very
slight slope. Then, from that junction directly below the kitchen pipes,
there is a 30 or 40 foot long pipe running along the length of the house
with only a slight slope, until it dives sharply down at the bathroom at
the other end of the house from the kitchen.

The problem is twofold:
1. The slope is almost zero and then there is a sharp dive.
2. Women have far too much hair.

What happens, I think, is that their shower hair clogs the drain at the
sharp dive into the ground (which then goes out to the street public
system).

There is enough flow that kitchen water makes it most of the time past the
drain, as does shower and toilet water.

However, washer water is suddenly a torrent, which can't get through the
hairball quickly enough, hence it backs up at both the kitchen sink and at
the washing machine (but not at the far end of the house where the hairball
really lies).

The solution is always the same. Under the kitchen sink is a drain
cleanout, and another at the washing machine in the garage, and another
somewhere buried in the front lawn. The easiest drainout is the one at the
kitchen outside wall, where I simply snake a 75-footer which only has
trouble at the severe kink at the far end of the house. Sometimes I get a
hairball attached to the end of the motorized snake, sometimes just black
muck, but it always works.

What I use is the $350 to $400 motor that Home Depot sells.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/RIDGID-K-...2363/206405033

You need the 3/8" thickness of the snake to go that far, but it takes two
or three replacement snakes before you learn the tricks to prevent the
snake from kinking and ruining itself (basically, even though you have a
huge motor, you have to use it as a hand snake where the motor is only used
in a momentary fashion).

That's one of the enigmas, by the way, of these motorized snakes. Here you
have this huge motor, and you're not supposed to use it. Makes no sense,
but that's what I've learned after replacing the snake a few times (and
lending it out, having it always come back ruined).

I just looked and apparently HD rents the stuff now.
http://www.homedepot.com/c/drain_cle...uipment_rental

You may as well buy the thing because it happens every two or three years
like clockwork. Be careful because the badly designed lock nut on the snake
is plastic molded on a bolt which ALWAYS breaks so call the company and
they will send out free ones (but you have to call ahead of time because it
will break while you're using it).

[Taxed and Spent]

On 1/16/2017 8:23 AM, Sam Hill wrote:
"Sam Hill" wrote
This is a sketch showing where the drains are in the house. Typical 60's 3BR tract home. No special reason - just wondering where all the feeders connect to the main. Right now, the washer and kitchen sink both are slow, so I'm guessing that the washer connects to the sink and then to main.

http://i.imgsafe.org/cf248683d4.gif

I'm wondering how to find out how 1 & 2 on the sketch are connected - under the house, outside.

Also looking for the main cleanout. Other houses in the track have them at 3 and 4 on the sketch. The one in the outside wall at the kitchen goes down and then toward the garage, but I can only get 10 feet of snake to go down before it his a sold blockage - I'm guessing a tee, but don't know.

Thanks!!

Sam

PS -- I'm guessing at how all the drains are connected. Only thing I know for sure is when the washer is draining, the kitchen sink starts to back up. All the other drains are fine.



it is blocked between 2 and the tie in between 1 and 2 that heads out to
the street. Clean it at your cleanout at 2. You can try a bladder
device before you go for the more expensive and labor intensive snake.

like this:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Medium-Dr...0332/100586170

pick the right size for your pipe diameter.

[Colonel Edmund J. Burke[_16_]]

On 1/16/2017 8:20 AM, Sam Hill wrote:
This is a sketch showing where the drains are in the house. Typical 60's 3BR tract home. No special reason - just wondering where all the feeders connect to the main. Right now, the washer and kitchen sink both are slow, so I'm guessing that the washer connects to the sink and then to main.

http://i.imgsafe.org/cf248683d4.gif


I don't do gifs, mofo.