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Now I'm mad.

The city added curb & gutter in front of my house.
They assessed & I paid.

Now I have a stopped up main line.
Apparently, in the process of backfilling, they broke the line between my house & the street.
In process, the contractors covered up the cleanouts I had installed near the street, but still on my property.
4" Schedule 40 PVC, properly primered, and joined with solvent, should NEVER let tree roots into the line.
But in there they are, according to a snake camera.
I think they may have caught one of the pipes with a tractor, but have no way to prove it.
Now I get to trench the front yard, just to repair hidden damage.

I feel your pain...

Re: water is flowing again

Originally posted by spideyz
I rented a roto rooter machine and fed it up stream about 10 feet and down stream 100' most likely into the main out in the street.

So that's what that weird looking thing was wiggling around in my toilet this morning! Good job. I always heard a good plumber was nothing more than an HVAC man with his brains knocked out!

The Root Destroy don't work immedietly. Put in in a 1/4 container at a time and flush it untill the container is empty before you go to bed. You do this in the spring and fall.

Like the guys said, you still need to treat those roots, they will find a way in there for sure.

You might want to install some turning veins at the 90 degree turn in order to cut down on TURDulence.

Re: water is flowing again

Originally posted by spideyz
Thanks for all the good advice on this project.

Yeah, think of us when ever you flush.

water is flowing again

Well I got the water flowing again. I dug a 3' deep by 5' long trench along the drain pipe. Turn out the cast iron transitions to clay right after it leaves the house and does a 90 deg. turn to the street. Well the big 6" pipe that came out of the ground (read above) was an attempt to cover someone else's effort to clean out the drain who knows how long ago. I dug out this pipe and found that it was over a big knocked out chunk of the top of the clay pipe. Well, lots of roots were filling the pipe here. I rented a roto rooter machine and fed it up stream about 10 feet and down stream 100' most likely into the main out in the street. Water is ripping now. Ran the bathtub full blast, washing machine, kitchen sink and flushed both toilets repeatedly and maintained good flow through out. I covered the cracked hole with some sheet metal flashing to keep dirt from falling into the pipe. I will see if this pipe stays clear for a while then decide what to do. If a couple of months go by with no problems, I'll probably just replace the clay from the cast iron, the 90 turn and the section where the chunk is out. And install a proper cleanout. Thanks for all the good advice on this project.

You sure you don't have a house trap they can use? You real sure??
That pipe outside is probably for your gutters, you have combo sewers or seperate sewers in your area?

Originally posted by benncool


What ever is leaking "OUT" of the cast iron I know is going to a good place.

Its all been going towards that new swimming pool you will have in your yard sooner or later. Those root eater chemicals tend to help eat away at that cast iron as well.
Just remember who's to blame when you end up waste deep, in you know what.

Having roots in your sewer line does not necessarly mean that you have holes like a sive. One or more small roots can penetrate a sewer line and grow in the line until they become a proble.
Although you do need a clean out there are other methods. On larger sewer lines I would never use a snake. Call Rescue Rooter and have your main water jetted. They an start at the toilet flange and carry all they way to the street.
A water jet has a sphere at the end of a high presssure line. Usually there are 4 holes drilled in the sphere that pulse water out of them backwards. This gives the line thrust down the pipe. When using a snake the stuff just lays in the line and you have to try and wash it out. With a water jet it will wash the line as it cleans it. If done properly a water jet should completely clean out a sewer line.
Len

the problem i had was the roots of a tree coming in through the connections of the clay tile , from the top of the connection as well. it would catch all the TP and "stuff", like a big net. the camera showed no fittings in the line, but in reality the sewer set over about 5' in the ground. they just used straight pipe and pushed it. the guy used a mini backhoe and it took about 12 hours on Sat. he did try to hand dig at first. my front yard is a huge mess, but it's done. i did try that copper sulfate but it only stays on the bottom of the pipe. my roots came from the top. i did have quotes from $2-3K. i got it done for $30/hr and machine rental $270. totalled $1100. now i'm waiting for an inspector to ring my doorbell.

Actually, a lot of the time the pipe is full of water and you can't see anything. Rent a set of cutters, or use a zipcut wheel on a side grinder. Sawzall with long blade works too. Put the clean out in and then send down the camera. Once you find the problem, then decide if it needs to be replaced. Mini backhoe will give you a new trench real quick.

Originally posted by tinner73
he came over with a camera-snake. pretty cool set-up.

Every time I think of this sewer camera setup I wonder if it takes a while to get accustomed to what you see on the screen! I guess you just don't do it immediately after lunch. I imagine seeing something laying in the line that was best left alone. Maybe it's just one of those things that makes me squeamish, but I mean, you know those plumber dudes have to make snide comments about their customers eating &/or sanitary habits or whatever when the customer isn't standing there. Imagine looking out the window to see them rolling on the ground laughing after watching that movie!! Talk about embarassing!

Rent a set of cast iron snappers. If the cast is any good you can snap it real quick and add a Fernco and make it much easier to clean. If the cast crumbles and won't snap....then you have a start on a new line then.


ken

Yeah, I know adding a clean out is just a band aid. But $100 bandaids are pretty cheap compared to a $5000 cure. The roto rooter guy says that 5 grand is the going rate for a new main in my type of situation. I can hire day laborers for $100 a day to dig, so if I do decide to cure the problem, I'll still probably do the work myself for probably less than a grand. But before I do that, I have to get this clean out in. For all I know, one of my relatives flushed a tennis ball down the toilet. Thanks for the advice.

Bah, I hate sewer problems. I bought my house and ended up with this problem too. 2 years ago the previous home owner had a root problem. Well several months ago I had the same problem. No clean outs in the house, so we had to pull the stool and do it that way. Used the cam and found the problem is right under my front deck. As if diggin my yard up was bad enough, now I got to add in removing and replacing the deck. Luckily insurance only covers stuff in the house... grrrrrr.

Anyway, I've seen some stuff on a commercial, they pour this "plastic" like stuff down your line and it's supposed to have a 50 year warrenty to it. Sounds like snake oil to me, but ya never know. Anyone ever delt with this?

My plans are to snake it once more this summer, add that root destroying stuff and see if I can't live with it for a few more years.

this is funny...i just had my waste main replaced this weekend. i don't know what you have but i had 6" clay tile. the pipe was about 38 years old with all the joints leaking. now i have a close friend that is a superintendent at a plumbing co. he came over with a camera-snake. pretty cool set-up. ALL of my joints had tree roots in them, about 25' worth of pipe. he had a guy come over last weekend and took care of it. this has been a headache since we moved in. if you're going to the trouble of putting in a clean-out i'd put in all new plastic pipe too. put in that clean-out without changing the pipe just doesn't make any sense the me. you won't be fixing the problem, only a band-aid. i had this done by someone that does this for a living, didn't look that complicated, but i didn't want to mess it up and have to re-open the lawn.

Something that I failed to mention is that, although I don't have a clean out on the side of the house, there is a large capped pipe (like 6" diameter). In the 4 years I've lived in the house, I never took the cap off. I always assumed it was a clean out. So the other day when I needed a clean out, I took off the cap and all I saw was a 3' deep hole with rocks and dirt in the bottom. I wonder if this could be what benncool is talking about. Someone at some point knocked a hole in the pipe to clean it out and put this 6" pipe over it when they left. Hmmm. Looks like I might need to dig this area too. Good thing it is 60 degrees out here in California.

I've seen plumbers access cast iron mains, knock a hole in the top of the pipe big enough to get the cutter head into it, then wrap a piece of metal around the pipe when finished and cover it up enough to hold the metal on until the next time. I would agree that it's time to put some "slick" pipe in the ground.

Had a root problem also. That was 15 years ago. I got it snaked out and I have been using Hercules root eater ever since.

It is 45 ft to the center of "Main" street and it is 5ft down below the frost line. I can buy a lot of root eater before having to spring for that excavation job.

What ever is leaking "OUT" of the cast iron I know is going to a good place.