Sewage pipe use by my washing machine blocked...

[Knight]

Hi!

A few days ago I had the unfortunate surprise of finding water on the floor or the room where my washing machine is.

What happened is that the pipe in which it flushes the water that was used to clean and rinse the clothes is blocked/clogged. What happens in this case is that the water instead of going to the main sewage pipe begins to fill a big sink located just beside the washing machine until it overflows.

It's not the first time that this pipe has blocked but in the past using a snake (I have an old flat one with something that looks like a ball at the end) or the usual "cleaning" products (Drano, Mr plumber, you name it...) worked. I even tried something that injects air into the pipes and it did not work either.

Given enough time (from minutes to hours depending on how much water there is) the sink eventually empties itself but very very very slowly.

My house was build in the sixties and the pipes used by the washing machine and sink appear to be a combination of ABS, copper (at least it looks like it) and cast iron. The pipe that seems to be blocked seems to be the cast iron pipe.

The rest of the sewage pipe in the house work and the outside pipes were replaced a few years ago.

What could be the source of my problems? Is there anything else I can try?

Thank you!

Nick

[phishfood]

I know that there are places that you can rent power snakes. However. aprofessional drain cleaner will have a lot more luck cleaning a difficult blockage than will the average handyman/homeowner.

[havasu]

Originally Posted by phishfood

I know that there are places that you can rent power snakes. However. aprofessional drain cleaner will have a lot more luck cleaning a difficult blockage than will the average handyman/homeowner.

As a handyman, I completely concur with phishfood. Let the professionals drag out the snake and fix your problem. They are so familiar with their equipment, they can feel their way down and through usually any obstruction.

[Knight]

Thank you guys for your input!

Any idea what kind of problem I can expect to be since these are inside pipes and not external (so it can't be trees or anything like that)?

Thank you!

Nick

[phishfood]

Nick, I have very limited drain cleaning experience personally. A little here, a little there, but not enough to really know what I am talking about. My forte is new construction.

My understanding is that the normal culprit for washing machine drain clogs is lint and other cloth material catching on irregularities in the pipe. But it would seem to me that such clogs would be rather easy to clean. Perhaps the cast iron is corroding inside?

Anyway, I hope that one of the more experienced service guys on here will chime in soon.

[Knight]

(Sorry for the delayed reply...)

Thank phishfood for your help!

I talked to the previous owner (which wasn't very difficult to find since he is my father) and he told me that, as I thought, it used to block occasionnally for him too.

He was always able to snake it out but he told me that at least one bend in the pipe is not easy to go through and it sounds like I wasn't able to go through it.

I'll try one last time to snake it out and if it doesn't work I'll call professionnals. If I do call a professionnal should I insist on getting one with a camera on his snake or should I only do that if the one I call is unable to unclog the pipe?

Thank you very much for your help!

Nick

[phishfood]

How hard would it be to replace the drain piping in the problem area with PVC or ABS? It sounds as though you know where the problem lies and what type of piping it is, which leads me to believe that you can access the pipe to repair/replace it.

[Knight]

Hi!

Sorry for the delayed reply, things have been going crazy this week...

Originally Posted by phishfood

How hard would it be to replace the drain piping in the problem area with PVC or ABS? It sounds as though you know where the problem lies and what type of piping it is, which leads me to believe that you can access the pipe to repair/replace it.

The part which I think is clogged is the cast iron. I can only see the top part of the cast iron (which connect to the copper pipe and then connects to the ABS part) since the rest of the cast iron pipe seems to be encased (?) in the foundation.

(Which would mean it would be a major PITA to replace AFAIK...)

Most of the cast iron pipes in the house seem to be something like 4" in diameter and the part which I think is blocked might be 4" too but with some sort of adapter so that the smaller pipe can connect to it (it's difficult to say since I only see a very small part of that pipe).

There is something I don't quite understand about that problem though... The kitchen sink and the dishwasher seem to connect to the same pipes and nothing overflows anywhere when I use them. The only reason for that I could think of is that maybe the dishwasher doesn't use enough water to cause any overflow.

The pipes that are used by the bathroom (bath and toilet), which don't seem to be blocked in any way, are something like 20 feet from the pipes which are blocked and when I try to snake it, assuming the snake really goes in the right direction (I can't see where else it would try to go though), I can only insert something like 10 feet of the snake.

I can still use the washing machine as long as I tell it to use a little water as possible and sometimes stop it when the water gets too high and give it enough time to drain... It does seem to take more time than when the problem originally occurred though...

Thank you for your help!

Nick

[havasu]

If I were in your shoes, I would call out a plumber who advertises low cost main line cleaning. He will fix your problem in just a few minutes. Once this is done, purchase one of those filter socks which is added to the washer drain hose. This way, you could remove the lint yourself before it clogs your pipes.

[phishfood]

Does the ABS connect to the copper with a hoseclamp type coupling? If so, maybe you could disconnect the two there and snake it from that point.