Recurring Kitchen Issue

I'll try to make this brief. Every so often... maybe once a year, our kitchen drain stops up. It is a two basin sink with a mini studor vent on it which was installed (along with the additional pvc needed) by a plumber when we purchased the house.

The drain pipe goes into the wall and underneath the crawl space about 12 feet or so before it hits the main line to go out to the septic field.

Plunging and chemicals do nothing. The auger - eh. We've had best success with a bladder.

Our drain is stopped up again, but we can't use the bladder (freezing temps, spigot not working, etc.). We're waiting on a faucet adapter to use the bladder from an indoor tap.

The big question for us is what I've attached in the photo. It shows the pipe coming from the kitchen sink, and the pipe going to the main drain out to the septic. But what is that third pipe doing there? And why? And is this causing all of our problems?

This house was a foreclosure, so we never had any background info on it.

Any help in what's going on would be appreciated!

can you explain what i am looking at?

was the picture taking with you standing up? or are you looking up?

can you orient me? i have no idea what pipe is on top or bottom.

are those pipes 1 1/2'' or 2'' ?

This is under the crawl space so it was hard to get a straight on picture. If you tilt the picture to the right, it will give you a better, straighter perspective. The pipe that is to the kitchen sink is on the top, and it's probably 2 inches.

I would bet the problem is in that 90 and tee. that other pipe???? you got me...where does it go? in the ground?

replace that weird piping configuration. instead of 90's use 45 degre bends. use a combination wye and 45 instead of a tee


my drawing is pretty bad, do you understand it

Fixed it for you

GF08 said:

If you tilt the picture to the right, it will give you a better, straighter perspective.

Click to expand...

Gonna presume when you say tilt the picture. That I use the bottom right corner as the point of axis. The kitchen and main are horizontal and the Tee is vertical. So what is the other line going to or coming from

This is how I see it as you described. Do you mean "from kitchen" in your picture?

any way your turn it, makes no since

The way you have the diagram is correct. Why would someone do this? Why would a drain pipe have two exits?

We can't tell if the mystery pipe was capped somewhere. We know it goes out beyond the foundation. Is it possible that it was originally the pipe that went to the septic, and perhaps they moved the septic tank later on and just rerouted (in a crappy way) the pipe? If so, why would they leave the old pipe on.

We're really stumped by this and know we'll need a professional to take this on if it's some weird problem, but we're wondering what the problem actually is - if there's one.

cut the pipes loose, run water. see what drains.

could be a grey water bypass, if its stopped up, there is your problem.

Just thought I'd post an additional photo. We cut the mystery pipe off, which we can almost 100% assume was a grey water pipe after talking to a few more people about it and the age of our house.

We cleared a bit of junk from the piping and capped it. Waited until the next day and used a bladder to just clear the line of any excess junk.

Ran the water and after checking things out underneath, we discovered a slight (hairline) crack in the pvc, so we repaired that. Waited a day, ran the water - still backed up.

Today, the entire crazed section of pipe corners was cut off and we're just going to make it a more direct (sane) route to the main.

If anyone wants to try and identify the ICK that was blocked up in the pipe, go for it. It's nasty!

Looks like lard/ fat from that George Forman Grill you wash off down the sink.

Bladders not gonna clear it. You need to cable it out.
That stuff sticks to the sides and gets hard like a bar of soap.
Soap used to be made from lard mixed with some lye and a little perfume