Drain auger goes through, water stands.

[dingdong1]

Fighting this one for a few days now. Flushed toilet one morning, water backed up and overflowed. Other toilet, shower, kitchen sink, washer all drain fine.

I plunged and found that toilet water was backing up out of the nearby sink.

Ran a 3 ft toilet snake, proved nothing.
Pulled toilet, ran 25ft auger. pulled out some minimal debris. put toilet back on. condition remains.
pulled toilet again, ran 50 ft auger. minimal debris but not nothing. poured maybe half gallon of water direct into the open drain. drain fills up and water stands.condition remains.



I removed the main sewer access in the basement, ran 25ft down. pulled out nothing.
Ran 50ft down drain again. observers auger cable visible through open access port in basement.
poured water in drain. water backed up and no water appeared in open access port in basement.
ran maybe 10-15ft down roof vent. Hit a bend i could not get by.

Pulled sink. ran backwards shop vac into sink drain pipe. Toilet drain bubbled a bit but did not shoot out or anything to suggest considerable air pressure.
Ran 25ft through sink drain pipe. found no debris.



Anyone have any ideas what is going on here? Im struggling to understand how the drain auger can traverse the piping and pop out down stairs, but not a drop of water follows that same path.

 

[Twowaxhack]

Your drain cable is probably too small and it’s either going through the clog and not opening it or your pipe is full of sludge.

Use a larger cable and head.

Draw your house floor plan locating all the plumbing fixtures and if you know the direction of the pipes draw it too. Then take a pic and post it.

Just a rough sketch nothing fancy.

If the toilet is stopped up and it’s not in the toilet the problem is in 3” or 4” pipe....

 

[Twowaxhack]

If the other fixtures are draining and flushing then the issue is not past those fixtures, it’s before.

The first thing I do on a drain call like yours is to approximate where the clog is in the system.

Then get the appropriate size cable for the pipe size im trying to clean.

 

[dingdong1]

Excuse the crudity. It is basically this simple (not considering vents). 20-25ft of pipe from toilet, all converges to a vertical pipe with and access. auger goes down "toilet", appears in "access port". water poured down "toilet" does not come out of "access port". toilet in "upstairs bath" is flushed, water comes out of "access port".

So basically you guys are saying my dinky home gamer auger is just poking through the blockage and continuing on its way. I do not have access to a larger machine at this time, is there any merit to the garden hose/bladder devices(i will cap the sink drain pipe, not shown in drawing)?

 

[Twowaxhack]

Attack the clog from the toilet that’s not flushing.

The problem is where I colored it red, if your info is accurate.,

 

[Twowaxhack]

Be careful with blow bags inside a house. You can make a big mess.,

You’ve been warned.,....

 

[dingdong1]

yes that is correct. The issue appears to be in that pipe.

understood on the blow bag if i decide to go that route i will proceed with extreme caution. If my info is accurate. (a question thinking out loud, not a statement of fact) it is not possible for the pressurized water to get to the upstairs bath or kitchen sink currently (with the blockage currently in place). i will either do nothing, go through the clog and out the sewer, or find its way into the vents and eventually out the roof? Pure assumptions on my part, looking for feedback there.


My main fear all this time has been that im fighting a phantom clog and there is some kind of airlock/waterlock situation due to a clogged vent. Causing some sort of plumbing physics problem that i dont understand. Is there any probability of this, or should i just go all out on the assumption there is something physically in that pipe stopping it up?

oh, and thank you for the help of course.

 

[Twowaxhack]

If the plumbing is not configured as you think and the clog is not where you think, you can fill up the pipe with water and it can spill out of a fixture in another part of the house. It can also possible, depending on the piping that you could fill up that drain and the water back up into the vent.........think huge column of water above you........

When you turn the blow bag off all that water comes back to you.......


....

 

[dingdong1]

If the plumbing is not configured as you think and the clog is not where you think, you can fill up the pipe with water and it can spill out of a fixture in another part of the house. It can also possible, depending on the piping that you could fill up that drain and the water back up into the vent.........think huge column of water above you........

When you turn the blow bag off all that water comes back to you.......


....

ha ok. scrap that idea then, didn't even consider the water coming back to me, which is reality of my "do nothing" result. ill get the right tool for the job, or find someone that has it. I feel better than im on the right track.

So for me to know i am likely successful without having to put the toilet on again, should i expect any standing water at all at the empty toilet fixture, or should i be able to dump 5 gallons down it and have a dry fixture? That is, when all is working as expected.

 

[Twowaxhack]

You should keep the pipe your cabling full of water as your trying to clean it.

Yes, you should be able to dump water down that drain and none back up.

The toilet needs to be pulled. Period.

 

[dingdong1]

ok. thank you.

oh yeah, toilet has been off for days. I just meant as a test before installing the toilet again, wasting a wax ring, only to find it is still blocked and having to pull it again

I wasn't sure if the drain pipe itself was designed to hold any water to keep sewer gasses out of the house, but i suppose that is job of the trap in the toilet.

 

[Twowaxhack]

I usually rig up a long water supply from
The toilet stop valve to provide my water to keep the pipe full.

I like to have the valve right there so I can control the flow.

Correct, toilets have integral traps.

 

[dingdong1]

alright. thanks for the all help. i feel much better about the whole battle. Ill see where tomorrow takes me on this and hopeful it will be resolved. as the rest of the plumbing is working fine it is not an emergency, but is certainly an inconvenience.

 

[Twowaxhack]

You might try some hot water. Not boiling! Just hot out of the faucet.

Let it drain down over night. Don’t run any water in that drain.

Start pouring 5 gallon buckets of hot water down it. Keep track of how much water you’re pouring. It can be an indication how far the clog is away from you.

Look up how much water one foot of pipe holds for the size you have.

Calculate approximately how much cable to the clog. For this to work you must start with a dry pipe. It’s not meant to be 100% accurate.

3” pvc will hold .30 gallons per ft

4” pvc holds .54 gallons per ft.

 

[Copymutt]

Any toddlers w/ a propensity to discard odd shaped items into black holes?

 

[dingdong1]

Any toddlers w/ a propensity to discard odd shaped items into black holes?

Fortunately no.

 

[dingdong1]

Well, i couldn't rent a larger auger anywhere so i went the 4" blow bag route with the sink drain capped.

Gurgled for a while then puked out some nasty stuff and dirty water out of the access in the basement. Ran it for a bit and clean water is flowing. Looking like i got it. I would say sludge was the culprit here, no obvious debris in the initial output.

Just need to put the bathroom back together, and hopefully this battle is finally over.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Twowaxhack]

You can see the problem it would be if the clog didn’t break free and you filled the whole system up with pressurized water, then turned the water off and the bag deflates. It can be bad..

I’m glad you got your problem taken care of, good job.

Thick toilet paper can contribute to problems like this and low flow toilets.

 

[Jeff Handy]

A blow bag can also break apart a weak solvent joint, or blow out a thin wall in a corroded cast iron, copper, or galvanized drain.

You think you knocked the clog loose, but actually the pipe is ruptured, and now is leaking behind the scenes.

 

[dingdong1]

You can see the problem it would be if the clog didn’t break free and you filled the whole system up with pressurized water, then turned the water off and the bag deflates. It can be bad..

I’m glad you got your problem taken care of, good job.

Thick toilet paper can contribute to problems like this and low flow toilets.

oh totally. i was extremely hesitant to do it, but it seems to have worked. The debris ive been pulling out has been toilet paper and tampons, so no question that was limiting the heck out of the flow.

A blow bag can also break apart a weak solvent joint, or blow out a thin wall in a corroded cast iron, copper, or galvanized drain.

You think you knocked the clog loose, but actually the pipe is ruptured, and now is leaking behind the scenes.

I didnt consider that, and that would be a nightmare. Luckily its a very simple house from 1900 and the entirely of the sewer pipe is visible in the basement. So if something blew out i would have know real quick. What i would have done about that would be a whole new mess of problems im sure

Im just thrilled it appears to be over. 3 flushes in and going strong