Water fountain drains

shop deals on amazon
Support your community
Shop deals on ebay
Advertise with us
Plumbing Forums

Help Support Plumbing Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
B

bluecamaro70

New Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2016
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Location
,
Looking for help/ideas on how to clear a drain positioned below two water fountains in a school. I have two water fountains that utilize the same drain. One fountain is on the upper level and drains straight down, where the second fountain joins in and drains straight down into ground (no access after that). The same drain pipe serves as the vent (straight up through the roof). Discovered problem when upper fountain was used and stuck open for some reason. Drain backed up and lower level fountain overflowed. I have snaked the drain with a 50 ft electric unit numerous times unsuccessfully. After snaking the drain every so often I will put everything back together and dump water in the lower fountain to see if it's cleared. First time it would take about 3 gallons of water before backing up. Each time thereafter it has taken a little less water to back up. The drain pipe is 2 inches i.d. and if my math is correct that means 2-3 gallons of water in the pipe equals around 10 feet or less of pipe. I'm tired of running the snake through this darn pipe and need ideas on what might work.

Also, whenever I pull the snake completely out, the end of it has no signs of debris on it whatsoever.

Thanks in advance for your help,
Paul
 
bluecamaro70 said:
Looking for help/ideas on how to clear a drain positioned below two water fountains in a school. I have two water fountains that utilize the same drain. One fountain is on the upper level and drains straight down, where the second fountain joins in and drains straight down into ground (no access after that). The same drain pipe serves as the vent (straight up through the roof). Discovered problem when upper fountain was used and stuck open for some reason. Drain backed up and lower level fountain overflowed. I have snaked the drain with a 50 ft electric unit numerous times unsuccessfully. After snaking the drain every so often I will put everything back together and dump water in the lower fountain to see if it's cleared. First time it would take about 3 gallons of water before backing up. Each time thereafter it has taken a little less water to back up. The drain pipe is 2 inches i.d. and if my math is correct that means 2-3 gallons of water in the pipe equals around 10 feet or less of pipe. I'm tired of running the snake through this darn pipe and need ideas on what might work.

Also, whenever I pull the snake completely out, the end of it has no signs of debris on it whatsoever.

Thanks in advance for your help,
Paul
Click to expand...

Paul, this drawing is most likely what you have, it is up to code.
If the drain ran, for a goodly amount of time. the blockage could be farther than 50' away

run a 75 or 100 footer.

how you can tell, after a weekend, [give the watr enough time to drain out]

turn the fountain on and time how long before it backs up.

then. grab a scrap piece of 2'' pipe measure it. time how long it takes to fill that pipe from the same fountain.

scratch your head do a little math. and that should give you an approx distance

redneck math approx. distance
fill sewer pipe 5 minutes or 300 seconds to get full.
fill 5' of pipe of scrap pipe, 1 minute or 60 seconds

every minute is 5' blockage is 5' away

Location of Drains.jpg
 
Thanks Frodo for your reply. I ended up clearing the drain with a garden hose and one of those blow bags attached to it. Took awhile and there was a lot of weird and scary noises coming from the pipe but it finally cleared the drain AND blew out one section of the garden hose I was using to do the job! Anyhoo, thanks for your help.

Paul
 
Thanks guys that was a good one, especially the comment about the red deck math I love that period we needed somebody to come in and to install ATY on a 3" waistline to receive a 1/2 inch waist from an ice machine, I'm from the East and I'm in Texas now and this 1 gentleman tried to double talk me a little bit. And I guess my ego gotten away and spoke up a little bit and then finally I could see it on his face that he Knew he wasn't dealing with somebody who he could bam boozle. I try to make the job sound like it was just gonna be so beg but then when I started to quoting the plumbing code book chapter and verse which I barely know but enjoy thoroughly I guess I gained a little bit respect. I guess I'm just a guy parried and I really like your forum thank you
 
You really need to proof read your posts.
Or at least go back and fix up the many mistakes.

It was pretty hard to read most of your sentences.

Meanwhile, welcome to the forum!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top