Clay in Sewer Line Causing Backup - Conflicting Evidence btw Plumbers/City

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Maybe you could run some kind of home made super long wet vac hose down there, to remove the water to allow camera inspection.
Join six or seven shop vac hoses together with Gorilla tape.
The hose should stop going in at 66 feet if the city is right.
I thought of that but the City said it would just fill up quickly,,,while the 3 plumbers telling me there is nothing at all clay or otherwise at the 66 foot mark
 
What do you mean, it will fill up quickly?
Makes no sense.
You vacuum the water out, it stays out, unless the soil is waterlogged.
 
Read post 19
One would think that the City would have had equipment to vac it out to use their camera if they were really of the opinion that a clay plug was at 66ft mark? I mean i know there are differences of opinion in every field...but the difference in what i am being told by plumbers versus the City is beyond huge!
 
What was the purpose of your post 23?
Well i will try that I guess...but since the City will not come do any further work since they claim its on my property side and lacking a camera like that i am not sure what it would reveal...and what if like the plumbers i dont hit anything at the 66 foot mark and go to a 100 feet like they did w/o hitting anything?
 
If you can shove in 100 feet of wet vac hose, then you can shove that proof up the city’s behind.
Take a video as you pull it out of the sewer.
Look jerks, here is 100 feet of darn hose that went in and came out!
WTF!
 
Are you doing these attempts through a cleanout in the basement, or from one out in the yard?
 
With a house that old, there could be some crazy stuff going on, like you and a neighbor sharing a sewer lateral to the street, which could be a factor.
Anyway, good luck, and pray for early spring!
 
unless the drain pipe is TOO DEEP (probably IS, if you are in Canuck-land...), I would dig down to the pipe, as exactly near to where the city claims it is "stopped up", and see what the pipe looks like. as was said before, the pipe is likely to be Orangeburg (asphalt covered paper), or clay pipe, or if new enough, or replaced, possibly PVC...... after inspection, you *could* add a tee and a pipe up to a new cleanout at that spot....???
 
If you can shove in 100 feet of wet vac hose, then you can shove that proof up the city’s behind.
Take a video as you pull it out of the sewer.
Look jerks, here is 100 feet of darn hose that went in and came out!
WTF!
All work was
With a house that old, there could be some crazy stuff going on, like you and a neighbor sharing a sewer lateral to the street, which could be a factor.
Anyway, good luck, and pray for early spring!
Well the problem is now solved - or so it looks like anyways. I got a drain cleaning company to come in with their high pressure hydro jet equipment....they ran it from the basement cleanout spot (like previous plumbers and the City) and encountered nothing - no big clay plug at 63 ft from house like the City claimed day before - and continued to aboutr 110 feet where they got stuck big time and couldnt reel the hose back no matter how hard they pulled...110 feet from house is well onto city side and they thought maybe their hose had went thru a city valve that was stopping them from pulling the hose back...so after an hour or so or fruitless attempts of trying to pull the hose back they pushed it out another 10 feet and then quickly pulled the hose back and it came free....and the backup drained thru whatever was blocking the line on the city side at 110 feet....so I can run water now w/it backing up...but the mystery remains (1) what was creating the blockage at 110 feet from house and (2) what is the story about this unpassable clay plug at 63 feet the City claimed that only the City encountered that was not encountered by 2 plumbers and yesterday's drain cleaning company with their hydro jetting equipment?
 
All work was

Well the problem is now solved - or so it looks like anyways. I got a drain cleaning company to come in with their high pressure hydro jet equipment....they ran it from the basement cleanout spot (like previous plumbers and the City) and encountered nothing - no big clay plug at 63 ft from house like the City claimed day before - and continued to aboutr 110 feet where they got stuck big time and couldnt reel the hose back no matter how hard they pulled...110 feet from house is well onto city side and they thought maybe their hose had went thru a city valve that was stopping them from pulling the hose back...so after an hour or so or fruitless attempts of trying to pull the hose back they pushed it out another 10 feet and then quickly pulled the hose back and it came free....and the backup drained thru whatever was blocking the line on the city side at 110 feet....so I can run water now w/it backing up...but the mystery remains (1) what was creating the blockage at 110 feet from house and (2) what is the story about this unpassable clay plug at 63 feet the City claimed that only the City encountered that was not encountered by 2 plumbers and yesterday's drain cleaning company with their hydro jetting equipment?
In your first post you said they pulled back clay at 63'...?
In your first post you said they pulled back clay at 63'...?
Yes the City claimed they pulled back clay at 63 feet from the house and that the clay at that point was impassable even with their power augers. 2 plumbers day before with 75foot and 100 foot power augers went to the end of their lines and encountered nothing...no clay plug at 63 feet,,,,Yesterday the drain cleaning company with hydrojet hose also went pass the 63 foot point with zero resistance or evidence of clay....and only got stuck on something at the 100 ft point which is on city side....so the City story sure looks odd!
 
Short of biting the bullet and replacing it now, you need to get a camera through there... I like the vacuum idea, but the gorilla tape scares me. Murphy says once you get several sections into the pipe, the end section will give away and stay in the pipe... doh!! Then you have another problem you need to solve. They make 50' hose sections you might put 2 together... Then where they join, I would have something secondary holding the 2 sections together... like a string tied around the ridges of one hose and then run to the other hose and tied around the ridges.

By the time you spend the $$ working on an intermediate solution... It might be cheaper just to replace the line now.
 
Short of biting the bullet and replacing it now, you need to get a camera through there... I like the vacuum idea, but the gorilla tape scares me. Murphy says once you get several sections into the pipe, the end section will give away and stay in the pipe... doh!! Then you have another problem you need to solve. They make 50' hose sections you might put 2 together... Then where they join, I would have something secondary holding the 2 sections together... like a string tied around the ridges of one hose and then run to the other hose and tied around the ridges.

By the time you spend the $$ working on an intermediate solution... It might be cheaper just to replace the line now.
I know this is resolved, but have been thinking more about sucking the water out of the pipe. As opposed to a shopvac hose, I would run a long garden hose through there. You can attach a pump, driven by a drill on the other end to get the water out. If you have to connect multiple sections, I would feel much better about that connection.
 
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