Dearest Plumbing Friends- Half the House Will Not Drain

[iamwiz82]

I am suspecting a major clog between the south side of the house and the north side, where the main sewer line is. Here are my issues:

Today we came home and had two toilet flushes, both liquid only. The second one did not go down, simply filled up. After some plungering and such, nada. The toilet is draining slooooowly, perhaps 1/2 gal per hour. After further testing, the sink in the bathroom is draining fine, but the tub isn't at all. Got the draino out and did the tub and it's better, but still very slow. Testing the other spots in the house I am not experiencing anything except that I heard a glug out of the laundry room sink, but that one drains just fine.

Just for fun I jumped on the roof and checked the vent stacks, both on the south side of the house seem fine. I ran a few gallons of water down them and it sounded fine to me.

Thoughts? Ideas?

 

[Jadow]

i would take a huge dump in the tub and fill it with water, then open the drain, should do the trick.

 

[coldmeat]

i would take a huge dump in the tub and fill it with water, then open the drain, should do the trick.

I can vouch for this.

 

[KillerBee]

Do you have a sewer pipe in your yard you can check?
Had this problem with tree roots growing into it.

Else from inside it's worth trying one of these

 

[Greenman]

Look around the outside for a clean out, if you find one take the cap off (stand aside when you do it) and run a snake down it.

 

[zzuupp]

Look around the outside for a clean out, if you find one take the cap off (stand aside when you do it) and run a snake down it.

This.

The sink draining fine is a distracter. That is the least amount of water flow of your fixtures.

 

[iamwiz82]

So I decided to go check the cleanout and, wtf, the top was off.... It was off and turned upside down on top of the cleanout, and it's full of water. This leads me to believe the plug is between the street and the cleanout. I'll be getting a snake tomorrow.

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

So I decided to go check the cleanout and, wtf, the top was off.... It was off and turned upside down on top of the cleanout, and it's full of water. This leads me to believe the plug is between the street and the cleanout. I'll be getting a snake tomorrow.

that makes no sense. More likely that the cap was just never screwed back on. had you recently watered or had rain?

If the rest of the house is fine, and it is downstream of the fixtures with problems, it's not a clogged main. Where is your washing machine? At our old house, I sometimes had luck running the washer to clear an occasional clog in the drain line in the crawl space. obviously that can be risky....

 

[iamwiz82]

Washing machine is on the north side of the house.

The cap was definitely on as of about a month ago because I had cleaned the area out when I had trimmed a bush. There has been rain, but not in the last few days. Other than that no watering, water outside has been turned off for the winter.

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

Washing machine is on the north side of the house.

The cap was definitely on as of about a month ago because I had cleaned the area out when I had trimmed a bush. There has been rain, but not in the last few days. Other than that no watering, water outside has been turned off for the winter.

well, they don't just unscrew themselves.....anyways, if the fixtures on the downstream end are fine, it's not the main.

 

[sjwaste]

Have you tried getting a couple of bottle jacks and just tipping the house to that side, see if you can shake it out?

I won't lie, for shit like this at my old house, I had a drain guy that I called. It was an old house (1940) with a lot of what we suspect was cast iron drain piping, especially from the baths. This guy managed to clear them out without doing any damage that would cause me to repair a ceiling. The nice thing was, he charged by the hour and he worked fast, and he NEVER left on a partial hour (which he could bill me for as a whole). He'd just spend the rest of that hour running a snake through any other drains that might look slow.

But that was an old house. On a newer one, I might try it myself with a snake since it's going to be a lot harder to do any damage. Have you isolated it to any one plumbing stack?

 

[iamwiz82]

That's what I am thinking too, but the cleanout is full to the brim with water.

 

[iamwiz82]

The house is old, 1943, but the plumbing is all newer. I suspect the cleanout was installed around 1992 along with the rest of the house.

 

[sjwaste]

That's what I am thinking too, but the cleanout is full to the brim with water.

Got a pic? What do you mean the cleanout is full to the brim with water? As in, the uncapped part of the cleanout? There's water coming all the way up to where the cap would be? I think I'm with you, the clog is probably somewhere downstream of that.

 

[Greenman]

That's what I am thinking too, but the cleanout is full to the brim with water.

Then it's down stream from there. I'm a contractor and I'd still call rotorooter, having shit particles fly over me off of some snake that's been down a thousand different sewers just isn't my idea of a good time.

 

[iamwiz82]

Sorry for the poor quality but it's ~43F out and I was barefoot

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

That's what I am thinking too, but the cleanout is full to the brim with water.

LOL....duh. I read your post as the CAP was upside down, full of water.


Well, that is disturbing...

 

[iamwiz82]

Strangely enough, just tested the tub and it drained immediately. Flushed the toilet with no love, then tested the tub and it was stuck again as well...

 

[sjwaste]

Sorry for the poor quality but it's ~43F out and I was barefoot

Maybe you flushed a shoe?

That cleanout is probably the best place to start working on that clog. I'm not sure if a home depot snake will cut it, though. If you can wait until Monday, it'll be cheaper to get someone out. I'm pretty sure emergency weekend calls are how plumbers put their kids through college.

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

you might also contact the city. in some municipalities, the City is repsonsible for part of the main to the street, and they may come out and flush it.

 

[weadjust]

You need to call a plumber or rent one of these

 

[BoomerD]

Strangely enough, just tested the tub and it drained immediately. Flushed the toilet with no love, then tested the tub and it was stuck again as well...

Any trees in the yard close to your sewer line? It SOUNDS like you have a partial blockage...over time, it will let water drain past, but quickly fills back up. Tree roots are notorious for getting into sewer lines where they catch bits of toilet paper and solids...they often don't completely block the line, just restrict the flow. Overnight, the water will drain by...until you flush a toilet or take a shower...

You need to call a plumber or rent one of these

Home Depot rents similar equipment...IF the OP is comfortable with doing that...fine, otherwise, call a contractor.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Can you post a map of all your fixtures, where the pipes go, and any floor drains? That could help try to diagnose where the blockage may be. Considering some stuff is draining it almost sounds like the plug is at a T somewhere and the water is accumulating in that cleanout. Also if you have a sump pit, open it up to make sure everything is not dumping there... had that happen to me a few weeks ago. The cleanout going to the city was clear but the rest of the house was not. The main line heading to the city (but in the house) got clogged with mucus filled Kleenex. Had a company blast it out with 5k psi of pressure. $350 bucks later for a weekend callout. All the water was going to my weeping tiles as it was coming out of the drain in the sump pit where the weeping tile pipes go. Eventually the weeping tiles would have filled up and I would have been flooded especially considering it was raining.


I would just keep plunging at the toilet, have someone go listen around to see if they hear water, might give you more clues as to what's happening. I had one blockage in my main drain years ago and I managed to unplug it with just the plunger.

A snake should be your last resort. You pull all that crap out and you are releasing e-coli and other bacteria in the air and contaminating whatever is getting wet with it. Though sometimes it's the only way, so they are useful to have.

Wait.... is that cleanout outside?! Cold air might be going down it and freezing up the lines. I'd consider changing that so it's inside. The ground acts as insulation and 10 feet down it does not freeze, but if you have a pipe going all the way down with only a cleanout lid acting as insulation it could very well be that the water in the line is freezing. Would make sense that this started recently.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Toilet dumps more volume that the tub.

Spare capacity is being taken by toilet which explains why the tub acts differently before vs after.

 

[TXHokie]

You need to call a plumber or rent one of these

Yep, happened to me in spring. Called RotoRooter and they cleared the main drain in the yard with this. They also ran a camera down to see why it plugged up. Found that the builder did a crappy repair halfway into the yard that had a little bend which accumulate crap over time. Cost me 180 to have them come out.