Commercial drain cleaning options

[Inigo Montoya]

Greetings everyone. Looking for a spot of advice, if you would.

I own a 25k square foot entertainment facility that suffers from frequent restroom leaks, particularly from the first ladies' room stall. After spending way too much time and money fussing over flanges and flushometers, we decided to camera the drains today.

We found what we think is the problem-- the cast iron drain shared by said toilet and the urinal on the opposite wall looks positively shrunk to barely 1.5" with... something.... The compromised and jagged drain opening is maybe 18'' under the tile/concrete.

Urine crystals? Salt? Calcium? How do you tell? More to the point, do these products I hear about (Calci-Solve, muratic acid) mean I can solve this much more easily than jack-hammering up tile and concrete and replacing cast iron with PVC?

Thank you all. As an honorary plumber today, I made sure to reveal no less than 4'' of buttcrack during the job in your honor.

 

[FullySprinklered]

Thanks for waving the butt crack banner for us. You may be looking at tile grout sluffed off down the drain by some ace tile setter. Had any tile installed lately?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Reach4]

You need to get your lines snaked with a commercial machine, such as you might use with tree roots. You can pull a toilet or two to give a big access point. While jet cleaning could work, it drives a lot of water back toward the cleanout port.

This will probably be much more effective than chemicals, and it will be much cheaper than tearing into stuff. Let's hope that can do the job.

I think you want to consider somebody who specializes in sewer cleaning.

If the camera operator was a sewer specialist, what did he suggest?

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Well... you're talking to the camera operator. BLAM! And no, there hasn't been any recent tile work in there since the 90's.

We've run snakes down there before. Not sure why it's not doing a better job of clearing the drain.

Are you folk opposed to the acids and enzymes and whatnot, or think this is a straightforward snake job that we keep botching somehow? Now that I think on it, since the camera did the exact same thing, I think the snake kept crawling up the urinal line instead of diving south to that caked up drain.

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Also.... just talked to my ''plumber.'' He's saying we already tried to auger (augur?) it before. The standard coily-spring attachment on the motorized one is too small to do any good, while the larger sickle blade is too big to even get started. Add to that you have to make a couple clever bends to get to it in the first place.

Thoughts?

 

[Terry]

I like to us something like Bio-Clean in the lines. Snaking is good.
BIO-CLEAN is...
a blend of bacteria and enzymes.
http://terrylove.biz/home/75-bio-clean-a-natural-enzyme-drain-cleaner.html

Does this have waterless urinals? I've had a few customers that have the idea that
If it's yellow, let it mellow, and don't flush their toilets very often. They call us when the toilet is caked with salt deposits, and the drain is mainly filled. It's a mess.

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Thanks, Terry.

Is Bio Clean more effective as a preventative measure or can it knock out years of accumulation?

We have urinals with flushometers on them. It may be that I dont understand how you can flush a toilet without water, though..

 

[Terry]

It may be that I dont understand how you can flush a toilet without water, though..

I don't know what is in your lines. The bacterial treatments work well on grease from kitchen sinks, and goo from lavs. I don't know whether you have rust build up though.
In a commerical setting, I'm guessing that the toilets are being flushed. In a few homes I see people not fushing a toilet for a day or two though. I had one customer that didn't flush at night and the acid from the urine burned holes in his copper drain line.

 

[hj]

quote; The standard coily-spring attachment on the motorized one is too small to do any good, while the larger sickle blade is too big to even get started.

That is why it is almost impossible to snake a line from the toilet connection. You have to find a cleanout, usually in the wall, to put the larger snake head in to.

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Does anyone think a chemical treatment is the more viable option compared to snaking?

The snaking gains flow but without owning a camera there's no way to tell how temporary it is. CLR & lime away don't review as terribly effective on a problem this size and I'm unsure if bio clean is better used preventatively or will knock this out.

And what do you folk think of hydro jetting?

 

[FullySprinklered]

The solution will be most likely something mechanical, rather than chemical. Pour chemicals down the drain and they're going to run.......down the drain. They wont hang around long enough to dissolve anything. The coil end snake might make a hole in the barrier the size of the coil end. The blade type end might do it if you add a goodly dose of patience. Dime to a donut says it's grout. I've cleared a few of those over the years with my mongo screwdriver and a hammer in clogged shower drains. Count on taking a couple of hours to whittle it down and open up the pipe. In any case, I'm curious about the solution to this problem, so let us know how it plays out.

 

[hj]

UNTIL you know what it is, it is impossible to make a recommendation. If it is some kind of buildup, it is possible the only thing that MIGHT remove it is a cable with a "chain knocker" head to try to bust it up.

 

[FastPlumber]

I just read the post. I know some folks mentioned and suggested cabling or plumbing snake, but I think Hydro Jetting or power washing is your best option in the long term. Yes it will cost more, but the way the hydro jetting technique works is to clean all the debris and wash away the entire stoppage, rather than cabling which sometimes merely bores a small hole through the obstruction without actually clearing it and the pipe gets blocked up again very soon.
Steps that a professional plumber will take to clean the stoppage using Hydro Jet is :

1. Camera the line
2. Jetting the line
3. and in the end quality assurance to make sure everything is done properly.

If you need to know the differences between cable and hydro jet here is more to read:
http://www.mrspeedyplumbing.com/plumbing-stoppages-cable-hydrojet/