swirlycurly
New Member
Long story short here I just bought this house which was built in 1974 with cast iron sewer pipes. There is a lot of settling going on, hard to say how much is from exterior rainfall and snowmelt vs inside, but it does appear that the interior slab is acting independently of the stem wall and there is major sinking (a few inches) especially around the bathrooms. I performed a test where I plugged the 4" exterior cleanout with a test plug which seemed to be holding well, and I filled the inside of the house up at the furthest shower drain until it was 4 inches from the floor. The water level dropped to the trap level almost instantly (like 4-5 inch drop in 15 seconds) and then I got another 6 inches of drop or so over the next 10 minutes as monitored outside. It seems highly likely that the entire system is trashed, likely broken from the exterior heaving because of expansive clay. I am trying to scope from the shower back towards the cleanout to see the condition of the pipes and I encountered this weird obstructions that looks like a pipe reducer right at the P trap. I am able to stick my camera down the drain, and as soon as I try to navigate the P trap I encounter sediment and rocks as can be seen in the photos, this is the bottom of the P trap for orientation, and I can't make it around the p trap because my camera sticks in the sediment and I can see this weird manufactured pipe reducer thing protruding into the pipe. Does anyone have any idea what this thing in my pipe could be or what the likelihood of all this sediment coming from just people showering off, or if the lines are likely ruptured somewhere and I'm getting dirt spilling in. I'm pretty sure I am going to have to replace all the sewer lines in the house at this point due to the leak test and their age and condition, but I was looking for additional confirmation from the shower drain that there were real issues here to get me more motivated to do it. It's not a huge deal to rip the whole house up, everything needs to be remodeled anyways, but just wanted to be 100% sure I'm seeing something that should definitely not be there. The sewer photos are taken about a foot to a foot and a half straight down the shower drain as shown in the other photograph. Thanks, any insight helps as to my situation.
