Na.. Plumbing question

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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I have a sink in one of my restrooms about 6 times a year it gets clogged up. I do interesting things like pour muriatic acid down it or shove the water hose Intuit and blow out whatever's in there and then it's all good and dandy. A few months later it's backed up again I see a lot of things floating to the top of the sink like baby lizards and what look like leaves and stuff. I have a sneaking suspicion that a pipe has broken Underground and when I clear it I'm just blowing stuff out for a while and then the Earth shifts and a bunch of crap falls back into that break. I'm totally guessing but that is the case. What the hell do I do?
 
Over the years I've had experiences similar to yours several times. What I've generally found is that the chemical and/or pressure cleaning "fixes" are temporary. Most of the time, when I take the "P" trap off underneath there is built up gunk and hair, either in the trap or more commonly on the vertical pipe just below the sink. The stopper usually is the culprit so I'll remove and clean it, then use a dowel or bottle brush to clear the pipe. I've had to do this in 3 sinks in my house, all bathrooms.
 
Get a camera down the pipe and see just how far it is to the break. Hopefully it'll be in an easy place to dig up and be an easy repair. I had to do this at one of my rental properties a couple years ago.
 
Plumber with a video snake to locate the break then get it fixed. It will only get worse. As you see creatures in the stuff that means the break has eroded the soil around it and is open to the surface in the yard somewhere. Spend the bucks to find it with the plumber, or if you end up unlucky, you will find it with your foot and maybe get an ER visit.
 
Just re-read and saw the leaves/baby lizards...it is possible you have intrusion from outside, although I think you'd see a puddle outside where it's broken.
 
Maybe things are getting washed down that shouldn't be washed down? I know of a similar issue that's happened in the past of cleaning dishes in a sink without a garbage disposal that became clogged over time because it was getting plugged with stuff that shouldn't be passing through it. An obvious idea, but nonetheless an idea to ponder.
 
I just bought sulfuric acid. I'm kinda excited to see how this goes.
 
I have no idea what you need to do in order to achieve relief on this, but I want to take a long moment here to thank you for making me feel better about the regular calamities I encounter, in the infrastructure of my existence.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I just bought sulfuric acid. I'm kinda excited to see how this goes.
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Well, if you're going to do this, do it right, man! Use hydrochloric acid. That'll clean the snot out of the pipes! :p

In all seriousness, you'll want to run a snake down the sink and ensure you have good clearance. But you'll also want to trace the line and see where there's a break, and if that break occurs outside your house. You very well could have a break in the pipe where stuff is back-flushing into your sink and floating up (though how it makes it past the trap is unusual.) Since most waste water/sewer lines intersect into a sewer main, you're likely to find that maybe something far downstream is plugged and this is just backing up to the path of least resistance (your sink.) Maybe call a plumber?
 
We can drill into the seemingly-impenetrable rock of earth, thousands of feet down; curve that drill bit - and then drill horizontally more thousands of feet, against hundreds of psi of gas/oil pressure and other untold hazards and difficulties. We can bust that drill pipe way down the hole, then fish the broken parts out and start drilling again. We can seal the entire bore from leakage.....and we can do much more.
Yet, we cannot design & install low pressure pipe 2' beneath a lawn, to the roadside sewer pipe and have decent protection from relatively minor damage -- and we cannot easily find and fix such damage when it occurs.

Needed: transfer of our amazing oil/gas industry technology to home sewage design and repair!
 
Be careful with that acid chit; a backsplashing will wreck your day and make your ugly mug even less appealing to the ladies! Full face mask, not just eye protection!
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
We can drill into the seemingly-impenetrable rock of earth, thousands of feet down; curve that drill bit - and then drill horizontally more thousands of feet, against hundreds of psi of gas/oil pressure and other untold hazards and difficulties. We can bust that drill pipe way down the hole, then fish the broken parts out and start drilling again. We can seal the entire bore from leakage.....and we can do much more.
Yet, we cannot design & install low pressure pipe 2' beneath a lawn, to the roadside sewer pipe and have decent protection from relatively minor damage -- and we cannot easily find and fix such damage when it occurs.

Needed: transfer of our amazing oil/gas industry technology to home sewage design and repair!
Click to expand...

Luckily we don't routinely have civil engineers drilling for oil and gas (thank gawd). Wastewater 101 (the course more commonly known as "****flow") taught them two laws: 1) Crap flows downhill, and 2) If the pipe gets plugged its not an engineering problem.

And now we know why plumbers get paid more than engineers :D
 
Oh man! The acid was incredible!
More to come
 
SCCutler said:
Bated breath!
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yup....:rollercoaster:

78b486d10d5cba47b7a5f1180ab39a52.gif
 
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I filmed it. Uploading shortly. I think I have to throw out all the toothbrushes, cups, etc in that bathroom now.
The fumes were pretty bad and I assume toxic.
 
I had the same problem two years ago, but the backup tried to flow into my basement and the sump pump pressurized the waste pipe. Nasty business, but $1500 fixed it on short notice. The pipe had been crushed by a heavy truck in my back yard.
 
Mason said:
You weren't supposed to mix it with cyanide.
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So I had poured a half bottle of draino down and was nervous that they might mix and do bad things.
The fumes were horrible for awhile. Now it just smelels like chlorine.
 
Bryan: you are my hero.
 
Mason said:
This was a lot easier to fix than your pool problem.
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The pool required hiring a dude. I like to break things pretty bad before I resort to consulting w/ a professional.
 
I thought at least small explosives were required to attain Full Home Repair Hero status?
 
Just a tip: Get one of these. $2 and it'll pull pretty much anything "organic" out of a P-Trap or loosen it up enough that it'll go on down.

If it's beyond the P-Trap, you can use more extensive measures like acids or snakes, or hire a pro to figure out what's wrong...

... and you won't burn rings in your countertop or remove all the chrome plating from your drain fixtures, like in the video. Ha.

72736f118ad00528498980586d774c48.jpg


Usually if that thing won't get it, just getting out a wrench and taking the p-trap off and cleaning it out, will handle 99% of sink clogs unless there's a garbage disposal involved.

The worst "normal" bathroom sink clogs are in the sinks the girls wash makeup off in. The usual hair and gook that's in the P-Trap all cemented together with the remnants of their makeup base into a ball of rigid makeup "jello with hair". Lovely stuff.
 
so....what's the deal with the dust mask?....were you concerned with that brew atomizing and dust flying everywhere? :lol:
 
denverpilot said:
Just a tip: Get one of these. $2 and it'll pull pretty much anything "organic" out of a P-Trap or loosen it up enough that it'll go on down.

If it's beyond the P-Trap, you can use more extensive measures like acids or snakes, or hire a pro to figure out what's wrong...

... and you won't burn rings in your countertop or remove all the chrome plating from your drain fixtures, like in the video. Ha.

72736f118ad00528498980586d774c48.jpg


Usually if that thing won't get it, just getting out a wrench and taking the p-trap off and cleaning it out, will handle 99% of sink clogs unless there's a garbage disposal involved.

The worst "normal" bathroom sink clogs are in the sinks the girls wash makeup off in. The usual hair and gook that's in the P-Trap all cemented together with the remnants of their makeup base into a ball of rigid makeup "jello with hair". Lovely stuff.
Click to expand...


Maybe this will help.... Same sink.
I tried a 20 foot snake, and um.... I can't say dildo anymore but read the thread here:
https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/na-plumbing-question.98271/#post-2143295
 
so....have you ever considered hiring adult supervision? :eek:o_O
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Maybe this will help.... Same sink.
I tried a 20 foot snake, and um.... I can't say dildo anymore but read the thread here:
https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/na-plumbing-question.98271/#post-2143295
Click to expand...

Very odd, because you didn't pour enough of the stuff to even get much of it past the p-trap, and from the time you poured in the video until the time you had bubbles was nearly instant... but perhaps it was just reacting with gook in the p-trap and was still strong enough to travel 20' and work on whatever was further down.

Oh well. Whatever works. Plumbing sucks. But it's better than the alternative.

We got the "joy" of tearing large sections of the finished basement ceiling and walls out a couple years ago, when a pipe to the upstairs bathroom hot water feed decided to leak and trash the drywall. And then having it rebuilt.

And of course, that turned into "while you're in there... let's call the HVAC guy and fix some of the ductwork problems the builder created in the 80s..." which almost led to "let's tear the entire basement ceiling out so we can put a proper air return in the bedroom on the far end of the house"... but at some point you just have to say... stop. LOL.
 
That's a really good point.
I wonder if this clog was local but I have had so many downstream clogs, I assumed this was further down.

But yeah, it clearly was not a long way away.
Good catch.
 
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