Veronica Austin
New Member
There was an ice jam in the trap, which can't be reached under the house because the clearance is so low nobody's crazy enough to crawl under there. When boiling water, vinegar and baking soda, and even anti-freeze didn't work on the ice jam, I tried de-icing salt, which formed an impenetrable clump on top of the ice jam. Right now it's had very caustic drain cleaner on top of the de-icing salt, which has done nothing to soften the rock ice clump in 2 days. I'm desperate because I can't find an answer and I can't afford a plumber!!
I've had advice to wait another couple days to let the ice jam defrost itself and then siphon out the drain cleaner sitting on top of the de-icer salt jam before resuming attack with boiling water every 15 minutes. So the de-icer salt would have somewhere to dissolve and flow out, followed by lots more hot water to make sure it doesn't reassemble into a solid mass again in a worse place.
IN CASE THAT DOESN'T WORK, however, does anyone have additional ideas? I'm pretty sure the salt jam doesn't extend all the way to floor level. If I can't get it unclogged, should I consider cutting off the pipe just below where I think the salt jam ends, throw away the plugged part, and attach a pipe extension to restore the pipe to its proper height? Should I try the new plumbers snake I already bought, or buy a really long auger to try to gradually drill through the salt jam? Even if I could plunge the jam further down, I don't want to because that would only make things worse. It needs to be broken up into tiny pieces first and then maybe flushed.
I've had advice to wait another couple days to let the ice jam defrost itself and then siphon out the drain cleaner sitting on top of the de-icer salt jam before resuming attack with boiling water every 15 minutes. So the de-icer salt would have somewhere to dissolve and flow out, followed by lots more hot water to make sure it doesn't reassemble into a solid mass again in a worse place.
IN CASE THAT DOESN'T WORK, however, does anyone have additional ideas? I'm pretty sure the salt jam doesn't extend all the way to floor level. If I can't get it unclogged, should I consider cutting off the pipe just below where I think the salt jam ends, throw away the plugged part, and attach a pipe extension to restore the pipe to its proper height? Should I try the new plumbers snake I already bought, or buy a really long auger to try to gradually drill through the salt jam? Even if I could plunge the jam further down, I don't want to because that would only make things worse. It needs to be broken up into tiny pieces first and then maybe flushed.