rod stuck in septic inlet

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openhand

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Hi All- I'm in a fix. I dug up the inlet to my septic tank in a wooded area suspecting roots had tangled the inlet and they had. I removed roots that were partially blocking the schedule 4" abs and then decided to rod it. It's about 20 feet or so to the dwelling. The style of rod is a flat steel tape about 3/4" with a ball on the end and a spring actuated barb, like on a toggle bolt you use for drywall. I was able to insert it around 15 feet toward the house, but when I tried to remove it, it must have lodged on the edge of the pipe at a fitting at least 10 ft along the run. I think I've really set it by pulling on it- I could advance it and then pull back and it would get stuck at the same spot, so I went for broke and tried pulling hard. now it won't advance and I can't remove it! Any advice? Thanks!
 
Got it out! Lots of vigorous shaking did the trick. It must’ve been lodging itself just on the wall of the pipe. Thanks for the response!
 
Got it out! Lots of vigorous shaking did the trick. It must’ve been lodging itself just on the wall of the pipe. Thanks for the response!
It may have had a big wad of roots on it and it got stuck trying to pull back through a fitting.

I use a spear head bit to get the water flowing and then switch to a root cutter to finish cleaning the drain. Of course it’s an electric machine.

This is also one reason why you do not want to clean a Sewer pipe through a smaller pipe., If Your cable gets wrapped up in roots in the 4” then then you can’t pull it back through the 3” for example.,
 
This is also one reason why you do not want to clean a Sewer pipe through a smaller pipe., If Your cable gets wrapped up in roots in the 4” then then you can’t pull it back through the 3” for example.,
[/QUOTE]

I tried explaining this to one of my bosses once. He looked at me like I was retarded.
 
I tried explaining this to one of my bosses once. He looked at me like I was retarded.
I use my cable to locate a better cleanout entry.

Usually now days there’s a cleanout but it’s just buried a few inches to a foot underground.,

So I might put my cable down the roof stack or a smaller pipe so I can listen for my cable in the yard so I can find the cleanout.

Works great here because our sewers are only 12”- 24” deep at the house usually. No basements, no ground freezing issues.
 
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I tried explaining this to one of my bosses once. He looked at me like I was retarded.
I use my cable to locate a better cleanout entry.

Usually now days there’s a cleanout but it’s just buried a few inches to a foot underground.,

So I might put my cable down the roof stack or a smaller pipe so I can listen for my cable in the yard so I can find the cleanout.

Works great here because our sewers are only 12”- 24” deep at the house usually. No basements, no ground freezing issues.
[/QUOTE]
Our sewers are routinely 6 to 16 feet deep. It can be pretty scary. Plumbers here use drain cleaning companies that have better equipment becuse it can be a major thing to resolve issues in these sewers. They trace by a camera that has a sonic location signal, it's actually pretty accurate for depth and lateral findings.
 
The connection at the street is usually 4-6’ deep here., Some are over 6’ but now the city has started a program where they’ll raise their lateral if possible if it’s deeper than 6’ so plumbers don’t have to dig so deep.

Here is a pic of a sewer that’s 10’ downstream from the homes foundation. I dug it up to cut in a combo for an addition.
356BE8BA-6E7F-4D50-AA14-148D281390BB.jpeg
 
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This is cool, what is this?
A type of cistern. I was digging out a sidewalk with a mini excavator and I hit a brick, I could barely move it with the excavator and I started to scratch around it and found a lot more bricks, it was the domed top of this huge opening I was sitting on top of.

I put the house we tore down that was converted into a 14 Plex. The city sewer was really deep, you can see the outlet from the house the City Inlet is much deeper.
 

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