> > This year we've had a pretty bad drought. <...> My guess is
> > that the trees were looking for water and managed to break into
> > the drain pipes and clogged them.
Your sewer service already leaked. Older sewer services were made with either
clay or iron pipe in short sections with bell fittings. The fittings leak.
The roots find the nutrients in the sewage and follow it back to the pipe.
Small roots go in through the leaking area and into the pipe. Sometimes they
just grow a big ball in there and plug the service. Other times the roots grow
in diameter and break the pipe.
> First house I owned had this problem. We had to remove the tree, dig up
> the yard, and run a new line to the street. I also had to rent the
> roto-router about every year and a half to clean out the line.
Hold the phone. If you ran new Schedule 40 PVC pipe from the house all the way
to the sewer main, you should never have to see a sewer cleaner again. A PVC
line with proper pitch and glued connections does not attract trees and does
not clog. I suggest that you have your service televised to see what the
problem is.
> If you
> ever have to dig up the line, make sure they run a "Y" in the line and
> run a pipe to the surface with a cap - then you can easily run the
> roto-router without much difficulty.
We here in the Sewer Utility in Saint Paul requre such a cleanout at least
every 100 feet. They are usually capped and buried about 6 inches below grade.
You can find it again using the permit drawing (your city DOES keep records,
right?), but people virtually never have to if the whole system was replaced.
In any case, most house services are shorter than 100 feet, so we rely on the
cleanout inside the house.
> I also had to clean out from the
> vent pipe a couple of times (including the time that my young child
> thought it would be "normal" to flush a stuffed animal...).
Yes, that's fun. If you don't mind roofs, it may be easier than pulling the
toilet off the floor. I'm surprised that the stuffed animal made it through
the toilet, though. I'd think that anything that makes it through a toilet
should make it the rest of the way, but there are some sub-optimal plumbing
designs out there.
> > The plumber sold me some "crystals" that you dump into the
> > toilets once a month to kill tree roots.
>
> That would be copper sulfate - it turns blue in the water. The copper
> sulfate kills off tree roots. Commonly sold in hard ware stores and
> identified as "root killer". Good stuff. Used it on our first house,
> and on our current house.
>
> Our current house is troubled by a "slow drain" for the washing machine.
> We do the copper sulfate thing about every six months, and the "gunk
> eating bacteria" things every now and then. I have had to install a
> "regulator" (a piece of copper tubing squished to restrict water flow)
> on the end of the washing machine drain hose. Still, every now and
> then, the washing machine will pump water out faster than the drain can
> drain, and we get a wet floor (on a slap so no damage). Then I have to
> go into drain cleaning mode again. We've lived in the house for 15
> years now, and I've had to "roto-route" the drain twice now. Usually
> the chemicals will clear things up though...
Again, I suggest a TV job to see what is really going on. The problem may be
under your slab, in which case, you are maybe wasting your time with anti-root
chemicals.
There are companies that will line your service with a resin-product-saturated
fabric. You wind up with a fiberglass-like liner. We do this with our main
lines, but their use on private sewers hereabouts is somewhat experimental.
--
Phil Ethier West Side Saint Paul Minnesota USA
1962 Triumph TR4 CT2846L, 1992 Saturn SL2, 1993 Suburban,
1994 Miata C package
pethier [at] comcast [dot] net http://forum.mnautox.com/forums/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier
I decry the textmessagization of the American-English language.
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