Modular home plumbing problem

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Melissa2007B

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The rooter guy is here now, and he removed the toilet at the top end of that drawing ( far end of the house ) and is snaking it. He says he's running into some kind of hard blockage, about 20 feet in, and the water still won't drain. He just put another tip on the electric snake. I seem to remember this happening before though. I wonder if that square section shown, is actually square and not curved, and they keep hitting it? And that may be causing this.
 

DonL

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The rooter guy is here now, and he removed the toilet at the top end of that drawing ( far end of the house ) and is snaking it. He says he's running into some kind of hard blockage, about 20 feet in, and the water still won't drain. He just put another tip on the electric snake. I seem to remember this happening before though. I wonder if that square section shown, is actually square and not curved, and they keep hitting it? And that may be causing this.


Does he have a Video Camera, or just stabbing in the dark ?

Good Luck.
 

Melissa2007B

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I am thinking that running a new sewer pipe outside the kitchen and tapping into it in two places from your pipes. The other end would splice into your sewer line. I hope it would not involve digging up the driveway. That number was a guess at what the low end for the work might be. Maybe I am being pessimistic. I don't know. But if that number did not scare you off, I would ask around as to who does good and reasonable sewer work, and see what it would really cost.

Some places have programs to finance such things http://www.renewdenver.org/news-and...using-rehabilitation-and-repair-programs.html

This is the kind of thing that a home equity loan or bank loan would make sense for. I would not carry credit card debt, since it is normally very expensive. That would be about 3 years of cable TV or 4 years of lottery tickets or a trip to Las Vegas for some people (not me).

It's not the sewer, it's the plastic pipe under the house. It has ALWAYS been inside the house. The fact that he ran into something hard, about 20 feet from that top toilet, then it cleared and he ran into something at about 50 feet ( that square U-shaped run? ) and it still won't clear. Yet the middle toilet, which you can see runs into the line at the bottom end of that U-shape, is flushing fine, as is the lower toilet in the drawing. It MUST be that U-shaped thing.
 

Reach4

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It's not the sewer, it's the plastic pipe under the house. It has ALWAYS been inside the house. The fact that he ran into something hard, about 20 feet from that top toilet, then it cleared and he ran into something at about 50 feet ( that square U-shaped run? ) and it still won't clear. Yet the middle toilet, which you can see runs into the line at the bottom end of that U-shape, is flushing fine, as is the lower toilet in the drawing. It MUST be that U-shaped thing.

Before you were describing that the other toilets were not working fine; water was backing up into them at times. So this is a different clog this time.

Repairing the plumbing in the crawl space would make sense. If it is accessible to replace the bad routing and incorrect fittings, that would be a very nice choice.

My thought was to bypass all of that wrong pipe with a new pipe. I am not a plumber, and I may be way over-estimating how hard it would be to work in your crawl space.
 

Melissa2007B

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Repairing that would make sense. If it is accessible to replace the bad routing and incorrect fittings, that would be a very nice choice.

My thought was to bypass all of that wrong pipe with a new pipe. I am not a plumber, and I may be way over-estimating how hard it would be to work in your crawl space.

Yeah, it's accessible through the crawl space, but they'd have to remove the plastic sheet and insulation from around it. But it doesn't seem like straightening out that U shape with a straight run of 3" pipe would be hugely expensive.
 

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Yeah, it's accessible through the crawl space, but they'd have to remove the plastic sheet and insulation from around it. But it doesn't seem like straightening out that U shape with a straight run of 3" pipe would be hugely expensive.
I agree, but I was thinking that if they put in the jog, there was something blocking a straight pipe. If not, that would be a good move, and point to the old builder being really lazy. A smaller person would probably be able to deal with the small space better, I would think.
 

Melissa2007B

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Before you were describing that the other toilets were not working fine; water was backing up into them at times. So this is a different clog this time.

I think we had 2 things going on. On Saturday, it appears that the sewer backed up, and all 3 toilets rose, and 2 of the 3 tubs blew dirt out, all around 5:35 PM. 10 minutes later, they all went down and worked until Sunday night.

THEN late Sunday night, JUST that one toilet and tub at the top end started having problems, AND the washer up there started backflowing into the tub. The lower 2 toilets & tubs and sinks, and the kitchen sink worked fine.

Repairing the plumbing in the crawl space would make sense. If it is accessible to replace the bad routing and incorrect fittings, that would be a very nice choice.

Just gotta find out the cost, with pulling out the plastic sheeting and insulation, and doing the plastic pipe.

My thought was to bypass all of that wrong pipe with a new pipe. I am not a plumber, and I may be way over-estimating how hard it would be to work in your crawl space.

It's a shallow crawl space, about 3'. But yes, if that U shaped mess exists ( and indications are that it does ), it MIGHT fix this, to make a straight run out of it.
 
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Reach4

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It's a shallow crawl space, about 3'. But yes, if that U shaped mess exists ( and indications are that it does ), it MIGHT fix this, to make a straight run out of it.

3 feet is a relatively large crawl space. I was picturing maybe 18 inches.
 

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Back to my original reply, and since you say the piping is concealed, that would indicate that the installer NEVER regraded the piping as necessary when he changed the exit point. If that is the case, the proper cure is to cap the existing exit and run the sewer back to the "U" joint, eliminate the U joint and connect the sewer there.
 

DonL

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Sounds like the North/South/East/West Home setting got set going the wrong direction.

Nothing a 90 degree house rotation cant fix.
 

Melissa2007B

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Back to my original reply, and since you say the piping is concealed, that would indicate that the installer NEVER regraded the piping as necessary when he changed the exit point. If that is the case, the proper cure is to cap the existing exit and run the sewer back to the "U" joint, eliminate the U joint and connect the sewer there.

It sounds terrible, until we consider that it works fine for 1-2 years, before needing rooting.
 

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It sounds terrible, until we consider that it works fine for 1-2 years, before needing rooting.

Sediment could have taken a while to build up.

And then after that year or 2 the configuration makes rooting difficult to impossible. If it were just a belly on the pipe, then cleaning each year might be sufficient. http://www.hydro-physics.com/common-problems/ But if the tool cannot follow the path, that makes that option not so good. If the turns were long turns, perhaps a jetting tool could follow the path for periodic cleanouts of sediments etc.

Still, if the problem is just solids in the U, why was the bottom toilet getting washing machine water?
 

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There are a LOT of "installation problems" that take many years to cause the initial problem, but once it happens it keeps happening in a very short time periods.
 

Melissa2007B

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Sediment could have taken a while to build up.

And then after that year or 2 the configuration makes rooting difficult to impossible. If it were just a belly on the pipe, then cleaning each year might be sufficient. http://www.hydro-physics.com/common-problems/ But if the tool cannot follow the path, that makes that option not so good. If the turns were long turns, perhaps a jetting tool could follow the path for periodic cleanouts of sediments etc.

Still, if the problem is just solids in the U, why was the bottom toilet getting washing machine water?

Bottom toilet? It was the toilet at the top of the diagram that had the problems this time.

And this time, only 11 days since the rooter guy was here, I was showering last night ( top bathroom in the diagram, again ) and heard bloop bloop in the toilet again, next to me. Then when flushed, it went up again. It goes down after 5 minutes, then up again. Same problem repeating. But this morning it was working again.

I don't know whether to call the rooter guy now, or flush myself down it. I feel like I cant take this anymore, especially in light of the last 2 weeks being hell with other problems here. ( my sister fell and injured her knee last Sunday and I've had hell on wheels all week with that, etc )

I just don't know what to do anymore and am depressed. I posted locally, trying to find a less expensive plumber who could sort all this out, but when they see this thread, no one has replied.
 
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Melissa2007B

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By the way, do any of these rooter people have an electric snake that can actually go around square corner bends in pipes, like this, and keep going around each one? If so, what are they called?
 

DonL

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You should stop wasting your money, and get someone that knows what they are doing.

A snake is not a fix all, as you have seen.
 

Melissa2007B

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You should stop wasting your money, and get someone that knows what they are doing.

A snake is not a fix all, as you have seen.

Good advice, but who can I TRUST and AFFORD?

And it needs to be gotten working NOW, before I spend a bunch of money on renovating it.
 

DonL

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Good advice, but who can I TRUST and AFFORD?

And it needs to be gotten working NOW, before I spend a bunch of money on renovating it.


What I would do is take that Turn out, If you can not connect the the output properly. Or add a clean-out. Then buy your own snake and a good water hose.

If a snake can not make it around those bends, It will take a lot of slope for shit and t-paper to make the bends clear.

Are you sure you do not have a holding tank ? That is full ?

I would call the City, that is why you pay taxes. Let them work from their end. (Well I would just fix it because I can) My septic is my problem here in the country. I am old too, but I can still do some shitty work. lol


Good Luck.
 
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