Too many floods...bad design?

My house was built in 2000. At least 10 times now we've had clogs in the septic pipe, at a tee in the crawlspace, where the main exits the house and heads to the septic system. Toilet paper gets to the tee and sometimes it gets hung up there.

Once it clogs, things back up until we have a flood in the laundry room, and by then it's a real mess to clean up.

I think this was a really bad design, and I'm wondering if you agree?
How could I streamline things to prevent clogs? These pipes are glued together, so I don't think they're easily separated.

Depends on if your willing to open the foundation wall up or not. If you are, separate the combination and put separate wye in.

The picture is a little distorted for me but thst looks like a double sanitary tee, not a double wye. Sanitary tees can only be used vertically on drainage for this very reason. That never would of passed inspection where I plumb from.

You can threat on a male adaptor on to the clean out port, then install a why facing the house main then cut and put a 45 and cap off the house main tee

View attachment IMG_1521899991.162258.jpgthis is what I’m talking about

mat30 is right that's a ty not a wye if you don't want to open the wall maybe you could use the cleanout as your 4"and cap off the toilet side...that way its a
direct shot onto the main another thing you may consider is a back water valve on the line that does flood

Hey, thank you everyone for the ideas. There's a few things on this house that were done bass-ackwards and I'm left holding the tab. That's life. I am a DIY'er most of the time, but I think I'm going to call on a plumber who's done a few things for me in the past. I need a permanent fix here, I don't want to think about this again! It's awful cleaning up the mess!

THANKS!

One more question. When you guys use the expression "open up the wall," what do you mean? It wouldn't be too difficult to access the pipe on the other side of the wall from the front yard. But there is something around the pipe that they used to seal the extra space between it and the block. I'm not sure what that is but I assume it would have to be removed.

Yes, open the wall means to jackhammer around the existing pipe to open up space to be able to remove the old pipe and sleeve new pipe through. Having access on the outside is a must in this situation. Most times, I've seen foam sealants or hydraulic cement around sewer pipes going through foundation walls.

If you take a picture and post it we can help better with what the sealant is. If it's a foam sealant, most times jackhammering isn't a necessity because theyve already left a large enough gap to be able to do the work required. If it's hydraulic cement or cement of any kind they actually took the time to make sure there would be no leakage and jackhammering is required. Unless you like using a hammer and chisel lol.

Finally got to take some quality pics. The wall is definitely cemented.

Yup, and they cemented around the bell of that double san tee, which in my state is illegal on its back. Tear open the wall and dig on the outside. Replace it PVC!!... Emphasized that for a reason. And go back with a double Wye. Or separate the two completely, plumbers choice on that call. But definitely need to get rid of that tee.

Also, everything seems a bit cockeyed or is that just me?

Man that line coming into that cross has got some pitch on it. I cant believe that was the way the house was built and a inspector let it fly, no pun intended.

I had a professional plumber look at my drain line today. He was like, "Oh my God, what did they do here? This never should've passed inspection." He looked around, took pictures, and said he needs a few days to think about it.

The solution he has in mind is raising the drainpipe 6" from the problem area all the way back to the opposite corner of the house, about 50 feet of pipe. Back at the source side, there is a drain line from the kitchen, a larger line from the upstairs bathrooms, and from the washing machine. All those pipes need to be cut and new fittings put on.

We took a look at the front of the house and the possibility of opening the wall. That would be even worse, pipe is under almost 4 feet of dirt, there's electric lines next to the pipe, and as he said, you don't know what you're going to find when you start digging.

So, any thoughts on how much this might cost?

If it were my house i would take a shot at cutting off that clean out trying to save the piece of pipe in it. Then i would put on a 4" wye pick up the 4" going to the house and clean out on the end of the wye. Then cap that line that goes to the house side

Or get a 4" pipe extractor and remove that piece that is in the cross and tie the house into that

Seems that you need to extend the waste pipe up and out 2’
And get the sink drain coming down with an wye

Looks like the septic flows right into the drain of the sink.

Well I'm back, 6 months later, with an update that it is FIXED! The first plumber I had look at it wanted no part of it and never called me back. The second guy looked at it and said this is not a big deal. The attached pic is what he did. After installing the new configuration, he carefully adjusted the pitch of the drain pipe above so everything was sloped correctly and in spec.

It's been 10 days since the repair. I've had the cleanout open a number of times to umm "observe" and everything appears to be working as desired.

not to be to picky......but there should be a dandy clean out on the branch of the wye.....the end clean out is fine so you can snake the main to the street but I don't see anything on the branch.....he sould also have installed a cleanout on the smaller branch...may seem like over kill but you can never have enough access to clean drains

Geofd said:

not to be to picky......but there should be a dandy clean out on the branch of the wye...

Click to expand...

I thought that as well. There are cleanouts for both the 3" and the smaller line further back up the lines. I agree it would be good to have them closer. But compared to the history I've been through with this mess, I'm feeling a lot better about it.