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[DUNBAR PLUMBING]

Customer contacted us on the 1st of february stating that their floor drain and outside area drain was backed up and water was not flowing. This happened on Skyway drive in Independence Kentucky. Skyway drive is located near the Cherokee Shopping center where LaRosas, Cherokee Drug Shoppe, Great Clips, Snappy Tomato, Neltner Billing and the Goodwill Store.

When we arrived, the situation had the beginnings of a bad scenario playing out with raw sewage coming up through the floor drain.


This was for a repeat customer, and there is a history to this drain line backing up in the past. Years ago the city sewer system came through this old subdivision and required the property owners to hook up to the new main sewer line that crossed their yard. This situation involved connecting to the main line, then connecting before the existing line entered the septic tank. And this situation is what caused the current problems plaguing this property.


This scenario of piping arrangement has now caused a piping system that involves not one but two piping arrangements in the exterior yard and one of the lines is either sunken below the original proposed grade or there is a large belly in the pipe. It had been two to three years since we last dealt with the main line clogging up, but this one was considerably different.


We tried to clear the obstruction from two vantage points, two of which worked last time in clearing of the main drain serving this home. 2 passes were made from the main cleanout that sits right at the garage door of the structure and the area drain that is right beyond the garage door, not 5 feet from the main cleanout.


There is considerable pipe damage/deterioration involved in the main cleanout tee near the garage door as twice we came back with dirt, subgrade dirt meaning we left the piping system and was travelling outside of it.

When we attempted to clear the drain from the area drain beyond the garage door... no result as well. We then asked the property owner if there was any other cleanouts we could access the drain from. To our surprise, there was one right at the tap of the main sewer. This would reveal if the clog was beyond the scope of piping arrangement serving the structure or not. When we removed the cap, there was no indication of backup at this access point, which led us to attempt to clean this sewer line heading back towards to the home.

With the use of extension cords, flashlight, a section of 1.5" PVC pipe and some fittings we were able to provide an access point into the drain system with our drain cables. The tap to this main sewer was vertical piping and a tee was the intersecting path of the drain system serving the property. Given that the drain line was dry, we knew that the clog was definitely between the house and the tap to the sewer main. Continued...



 

[DUNBAR PLUMBING]

Once we started to operate the drain cable leading towards the house, we instantly heard the cable whipping through wastewater, indicating a low spot in the line immediately leading up to the tee dropping waste vertically. As we continued, the sound of wastwater sloshing soon disappeared, and we continued over 30 feet. We reached a spot where the machine started to strain under tension of the cable moving back toward the machine. Whatever we entered into, there was a consistent path, or number of feet that the pipe was comprised of waste that had built up for a period of time. Most likely since the last time we cleared the line years ago.

Given that we worked tirelessly up to the point of exhaustion, trying to clear this line which happened late at night, the drain finally opened the piping system. When the drain cable finally broke loose the obstruction, the "sound" created when hydropressure breaks through and pushes waste, it's a remarkable sound along with a sound of relief. Relief that the drain is finally open and the job is complete.

Over 100 gallons of wastewater aided in the removal of the clog, and the condition of the wastewater was blackened. In the drain cleaning business, "blackened" wastewater is a true sign of aged waste matter, meaning that the bacterial digestive process has already begun in the drain line itself. This also give indication that the drain line has a bad spot that takes considerable time for the clogging to reoccur.

If we were to guess as a plumbing company what is the reason for this failure point, our first suggestion would be improper installation of the piping arrangement in the ground. That points to improper subgrade or "grillage" that is supposed to support the piping instantly when placed during the repair or replacement.

It is crucial that when any piping underground is to be placed, it must have some type of compaction to provide stability of the pipe to prevent incorrect grade of the piping which leads downward to the main sewer line. If this is not performed, what happens is the piping arrangement can buckle at a connection, causing a trouble point where the piping will collect whatever runs through it, or an elongated belly in the pipe where waste and wastewater slows down dramatically, is forced to build up to a point where the wastewater has to crest the top of the pipe to reach its destination.

One heavy toilet paper user, one foreign object or debri will alter this already unstable piping condition and trigger a backup. When the pipe clog broke free, we instructed the property owner to flush toilets roughly 20 times to fully clear the line, use hydropressure to the advantage of the now clean piping system and remove any remaining debri.

Customer implied that in the spring that they would contact someone about correcting this issue so the problem does not repeat itself. Dunbar Plumbing was glad to assist this repeat customer in their current plumbing problem and hope some permanent resolution comes in the near future to end the worries of this chronic sewer backing up.

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Tags: clogged sewer  clogged pipe  clogged sewer pipe  main line clog  sewage backup skyway drive independence kentucky NORTHERN KENTUCKY PLUMBERS