Saturday, November 24, 2007
PipeDreams:
Dad in law and i went in and tackled an annoying house problem, a partial clog of a drain pipe. When we first had the house, the old washer would dump it's watery load and sometimes the dumping exceeded what the pipe could handle and the result is this backup spill that just plain sucks. After a while doing the laundry would have a very high percentage of backflow, and we replaced them with our new high efficient front loaders now. Well after a while it too started to back up but not as often. But this past month it got too much. I tried doing the baking soda and vinegar down the drain thing but that didn't work. I tired the snake thing, but that went nowhere. So after consultation with the in-laws, we noticed that there is an pipe access on the outside of the house with a cast iron cap that seemed like it hasn't been opened since the house was built.
Well yesterday after we had our fill of turkey, we broke out the 2.5" pipe wrench and sledgehammer to nudge the cap open. After opening the cap there didn't seem to be any kind of goop, sludge, muck, or crap in it. We did a test by putting a water hose and seeing how much flow the drain can take.
The drain from the washing machine connects to the drain in the kitchen sink which then flows down into the main drain pipe to the city drain. Well the stoppage came up on the kitchen sink at about 1/2way. Pipes need to flow at 5gal/min but it was only doing half of that. So the only other way to get the crap out was with toxic death laden pipe flushing solvents. Its kinda easy, stick it in, leave it for 7-8 hours, and wash with hot water. We did this last night. I decided to go one further and use boiling water, the hotter the better.
We went to pescadero to pick up some bread and came back to flush the house again. With the hose connected to the side access it seemed to be stuck at a little more than half way. Fricking great, so we kept the flow going for a while, with moms in law at the sink, dads in law at the side and me controlling the flow of the hose, it eventually started to loosen up gradually. After about 2-3 minutes the flow picked up to the max that i could do as well as moms putting a pot of water into the kitchen sink. Woot! All the years of crud, muck, goop, and crap is out! Hopefully for a good while.
Now we can do our laundry once again effortlessly.
Dad in law and i went in and tackled an annoying house problem, a partial clog of a drain pipe. When we first had the house, the old washer would dump it's watery load and sometimes the dumping exceeded what the pipe could handle and the result is this backup spill that just plain sucks. After a while doing the laundry would have a very high percentage of backflow, and we replaced them with our new high efficient front loaders now. Well after a while it too started to back up but not as often. But this past month it got too much. I tried doing the baking soda and vinegar down the drain thing but that didn't work. I tired the snake thing, but that went nowhere. So after consultation with the in-laws, we noticed that there is an pipe access on the outside of the house with a cast iron cap that seemed like it hasn't been opened since the house was built.
Well yesterday after we had our fill of turkey, we broke out the 2.5" pipe wrench and sledgehammer to nudge the cap open. After opening the cap there didn't seem to be any kind of goop, sludge, muck, or crap in it. We did a test by putting a water hose and seeing how much flow the drain can take.
The drain from the washing machine connects to the drain in the kitchen sink which then flows down into the main drain pipe to the city drain. Well the stoppage came up on the kitchen sink at about 1/2way. Pipes need to flow at 5gal/min but it was only doing half of that. So the only other way to get the crap out was with toxic death laden pipe flushing solvents. Its kinda easy, stick it in, leave it for 7-8 hours, and wash with hot water. We did this last night. I decided to go one further and use boiling water, the hotter the better.
We went to pescadero to pick up some bread and came back to flush the house again. With the hose connected to the side access it seemed to be stuck at a little more than half way. Fricking great, so we kept the flow going for a while, with moms in law at the sink, dads in law at the side and me controlling the flow of the hose, it eventually started to loosen up gradually. After about 2-3 minutes the flow picked up to the max that i could do as well as moms putting a pot of water into the kitchen sink. Woot! All the years of crud, muck, goop, and crap is out! Hopefully for a good while.
Now we can do our laundry once again effortlessly.
Labels: house
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