| EricHiggin said: If the clog is solid enough, water or air pressure very rarely works, even with boiling water. Now if the clog allows water to drain slowly, especially if you've punched some holes in it, then some really hot, if not boiling water, with water pressure from a hose, will usually be enough to unclog the majority of it. Best if the hose water is really hot as well like from a sink tap if it has a garden hose adapter. The heat will cause the pipes to expand a bit and the water pressure will cause swirling around the clog gaps/holes and will loosen it up even more and cause it to come apart. It's best to block any other pipe openings on that run of pipe so the pressure isn't relieved elsewhere (like at another sink) while trying to clear the clog. My present place is only a decade old and the plumbing job that was done is sad. I've done a bunch of work to it this year. Luckily the basement isn't finished so it was easy to get to. They couldn't even get the level of fall correct. Most runs had way to much fall where they began and had negative fall before they reached the collector run. They only had about a third of the hangers they should've, so the pipes all have bows in them all the way down the runs. Once I cleared my kitchen run that's when I checked and realized how poor the fall was. Adding more hangers and correcting the fall as much as possible looks to have solved the kitchen run problem, as well as another much worse potential problem I believe I would've eventually had from one of my toilets due to negative fall and lack of support. Sometimes you just gotta do it yourself if you want it done right. |
Got it out or rather through today. It clogged back up completely when stuff started coming loose in the pipe, it surged for a second and then all got stuck in the next corner. No use plunging when it's that far down, the pressure wave goes into the dishwasher, no effect with suction either.
So auger back in, which actually got stuck for a little bit. I could feel the weight of the plug on it and it took quit a bit of strength (and hoping not to pull the pipes apart) to get the auger loose again. Then push the plug further through followed by that satisfying gurgle that it broke up and went on its merry way. A lot more twisting and up and down, boiling water etc to clean it out further and now it drains super fast again.
But you can hear by the way the water leaves the pipe that there must be a belly or maybe multiple in there :/
Plumbing in this house is a mess. The toilets upstairs have their permanent plungers, regularly clog like multiple times per week. Easy to plunge but that shouldn't be routine. I guess not surprising since the first time the sewer exit clogged and flooded the basement they found tile grout all in the pipe... We got water alarms in the furnace room now (water heater also leaked after a few years) next to the floor drain. And we had a plumber reroute the water mains so all water goes through the water softener. For some reason they left the kitchen and toilets on city water. Hard water here, broke the kitchen tap and toilet cut off valves.
Still better than renting a house anyway, but new house (build 2002, we got it 2007) doesn't mean well build. Then again, our first house was an oldie with a leaking roof (actually found snow in the attic), leaking chimney for which the back wall had to be replaced and the stove in the basement kept triggering the CO alarm... Electrical was a hazard, galvanized water lines that were corroded on the inside. But the drains worked!
Our first house
We have a bit of a history with water issues lol
