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Plumbing disaster. Now with AC leakage!
DasUberEdward
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So i've been fighting with a clog in my mother's house for the last week or so and i'm completely at a loss.
The bathroom sink and kitchen sink share a drain line somewhere between the walls. Right now if I were to run water in the bathroom the sink would eventually fill up and then send water into the kitchen sink and the other way around. So far i've tried a few different liquid clog chemicals that did nothing to alleviate the problem so that's when I removed the P trap in both sinks and gave it a good cleaning with one of those cheap-o plastic drain snakes. No luck. Ended up getting a 20FT drum auger and giving that a whirl. At best i'd end up seeing it pop out of the other sink but never quite hit where the clog was.
Recently the clog has started to cause leaking from somewhere in the pipes and down through the basement ceiling and that's starting to flood the carpet so I located the main drain cleanout plug. After a few hours of pushing and pulling I got the length of the drum auger to go through the whole thing. Tried the sinks again. Still clogged.
At this point the leaking is getting so bad in the basement and under the sinks that i'd almost be willing to just turn the water off until I could dry out the house. Unfortunately people need things like toilets so i'm at a loss. Wherever this clog is I don't have the competence in plumbing to find it. But I also don't have the money to call a plumber. Should I just spend another day or so sending the auger down every pipe in hopes of hitting a clog or am I missing something?
The toilet and shower drains work fine thankfully. I'd suppose this means that the clog is in some hidden place before the main line?
The bathroom sink and kitchen sink share a drain line somewhere between the walls. Right now if I were to run water in the bathroom the sink would eventually fill up and then send water into the kitchen sink and the other way around. So far i've tried a few different liquid clog chemicals that did nothing to alleviate the problem so that's when I removed the P trap in both sinks and gave it a good cleaning with one of those cheap-o plastic drain snakes. No luck. Ended up getting a 20FT drum auger and giving that a whirl. At best i'd end up seeing it pop out of the other sink but never quite hit where the clog was.
Recently the clog has started to cause leaking from somewhere in the pipes and down through the basement ceiling and that's starting to flood the carpet so I located the main drain cleanout plug. After a few hours of pushing and pulling I got the length of the drum auger to go through the whole thing. Tried the sinks again. Still clogged.
At this point the leaking is getting so bad in the basement and under the sinks that i'd almost be willing to just turn the water off until I could dry out the house. Unfortunately people need things like toilets so i'm at a loss. Wherever this clog is I don't have the competence in plumbing to find it. But I also don't have the money to call a plumber. Should I just spend another day or so sending the auger down every pipe in hopes of hitting a clog or am I missing something?
The toilet and shower drains work fine thankfully. I'd suppose this means that the clog is in some hidden place before the main line?
DasUberEdward on
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TylerJ on League of Legends (it's free and fun!)
TylerJ on League of Legends (it's free and fun!)
They're the only sinks we have but i'm thinking i'll just put up a big DO NOT USE sign in the kitchen and bathroom until things dry out some. I'm going to go back to snaking through the kitchen sink because I think at this point if 25 feet in the main line didn't find it it's not coming from there.
TylerJ on League of Legends (it's free and fun!)
What
What did you put down the sink DUE?
TylerJ on League of Legends (it's free and fun!)
There are some pretty heavy duty sulfuric acid cleaners out there which will get rid of most fat/hair based clogs. If I'm not mistaken most cleaners from the hardware store are just lye/potash based, and the acidic ones are usually only available to licensed plumbers.
I'd be calling a plumber right about now, but since that isn't an option, I would probably continue on with the auguring efforts.
Update time. Looks like I have a leak from one of the condensation lines on the central AC unit that was doubling (heck maybe tripling) they actual amount of water caused by the plumbing problem. It looks like the secondary (i think? since it is inside the house) condensate line (white pvc tube) leading out of the furnace is leaking a ton of ice cold water when the AC is running. There seems to be some sort of black putty binding around the line from the original installation and this is what has failed. Any idea what the hell the stuff is called and if it can be easily repaired?
On the good side I did manage to clean up the basement and have a moment of dryness. Also now that i've got a shop-vac the idea of trying to suck out the clog is becoming increasingly appealing. Any advice with that?
[url="http://"]http://www.nachi.org/forum/attachments/f20/22846d1216844149-condensate-line-hpim2811.jpg[/url]
or it could be pipe dope if it looks like a darker version of this stuff:
[url="http://"]http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/image/109180062.jpg[/url]
If it's rubbery in texture, it's probably pipe glue or maybe silicon, but if it's gritty and more mooshy than rubbery (think like oatmeal that's still holding together somehow) it's probably pipe dope. Can you get us a picture?
TylerJ on League of Legends (it's free and fun!)
upload incoming.
that black gunk. no idea what it is. soft and sort of rubbery.
If there's leaking then it's likely a PVC joint or coupler has failed and the way to fix that is to section out the failed bit and mend with new PVC.
If nothing is wrong, the sealant may have just crapped out and need to be resealed.
If there is a crack inside, you can squeeze in silicone on the fitting, making sure to be generous where the crack is, but also fill in all around the fitting and thread your fitting back in. Be very gentle if this is the case; you don't want to crack it more, and you want the silicon to set up in the crack and around the fitting.
If there is ice, try to thaw it (shut off the ac) and see if it keeps happening. If there is a plug, remove it. Then get a fitting for the pipe (it will be like $1) and glue and piper (~$10 for a small set) and glue that sucker back up.
TylerJ on League of Legends (it's free and fun!)
Well if it means anything that pipe itself isn't leaking and I was able to pretty clearly see that the leak came from the sealant cracking. I think I should have been more clear in my previous post because the pipe itself seems to have no defects. There are no signs of cracks anywhere else and fortunately no signs of freezing.
Yesterday after I made the post I ended up going out to pick up some all purpose weld and sealant which I applied yesterday but it recommends 24 hours of time to fully dry. I'll be turning the AC on in a few hours to see what happens and if that doesn't work i'll remove all of the sealant and start from the top. Thanks for the advice everyone.
If you're set on doing it yourself, you're going to have to figure out how to get your snake to turn down at the cross, which will take a lot of patience, frustration, swearing, and luck. I would recommend seeing if there wasn't any way you could get a plumber out to take a look at it for you, because cross fittings are the worst. Whoever invented them should be shot.
If it leaks after this, cut the pip after it makes its turn. That way you can spin the pipe and fitting out of the AC (after stripping away the new and old sealant) and take a look inside the unit (looking for cracks/plugs/ice).
Hope it's holding though!
TylerJ on League of Legends (it's free and fun!)