Plumbing Zone - Professional Plumbers Forum banner

Trouble clearing a sewer.

4180 Views 38 Replies 12 Participants Last post by  rooterboy
A few days ago I got a call for a stopped up drain, the customer called me back after a few days to come and clear it, Her husband tried but could not clear it. Anyways the toilet was already pulled and I could not locate a cleanout in the front yard. I brought my Spartan 300 into the bathroom with 55 mag cable and a 2 1/2" cutter on it. I went in through the toilet flange and thought every thing was ok? Unfortunately my cable went up the vent and got caught. It took quite a while running the machine in forward and reverse to finally get my cable out. Well my cable had some insulation wrapped around it. My guess it there was an opening in the vent in the attic and my cable went out the opening into the attic and twisted up in some insulation. The small camera would have been quick to check the vent from the roof to look for a hole in the vent. I did not want to try again from the toilet flange so I went up on the roof with the K60sp and tried to clear it. I was out about 100' and was not able to clear it ran into a root stoppage that stopped the K60 and even caused it to run backwards when there was a lot of torque on the cable. I gave up after about three hours.
  • Like
Reactions: 1
1 - 3 of 39 Posts
I'm getting to the point where I rarely offer to pull a toilet for drain access anymore, unless the stoppage is confined to that bathroom group. If it's a main line stoppage I'm selling a cleanout.

I'm with Terry, roof vents are for camera access and the occasional kitchen drain.
  • Like
Reactions: 1
I had to throw in the towel on an island kitchen the other day. It was one of those older triple sinks with the disposal in the middle. Cabinet doors were half height, and each side basin was individually trapped into a sanitary cross with a loop vent. Of course, there's no cleanout, and no room to add one without gutting it. I try every trick I know off to get my cable down that cross, to no avail. I even cut the vent loop to the dismay of the customer. No dice.

The guy was dogging me from 20 min into the call. Said the other 4 companies that had been out over the years had been in and out in 30 mins and he couldn't believe I couldn't do the most basic plumbing task. I finally told him sorry for the inconvenience and that we wouldn't charge him anything per my managers instructions. He says he's going to call a lawyer and I tell him we have nothing else to talk about.

Fun day.
  • Like
Reactions: 4
You should have asked why he didn’t call them back. People always want to run their mouth
I was going to, until he mentioned the lawyer. Then he got all upset that I wouldn't talk to him anymore. I told him he'd already thrown down the gauntlet so to speak, and he could take it up with management or our legal department.

I sure as heck wasn't giving him anything else to work with.
  • Like
Reactions: 4
1 - 3 of 39 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top