christaaay
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I bought my 1973 two story house in July 2008. Since then I've had 4-5 backups where the toilets and bathtub and shower on the first floor will not flush or will have muddy water come up in them. I've had the pipes cleaned 5-6 times and the last time I was told that I needed to camera the line. I did and I've had about 6 plumbers watch the video to provide quotes. Basically it shows my 4" cast iron pipes are about 2" full of sludge in some sections and its holding water in some places, all of which is under the slab foundation. The first plumber wrote up a bid for channel rot, 2 bellies, poor pitch, and a collapsed joint. Because of the locations of the bathrooms and the pipes he said the only option was to tunnel under the house about 35ft in and 10 feet over (restricted access b/c of a pool). His bid was 20k to do the repairs. The other plumbers I've had look at the problem all seem to say different things. They all seem to agree that there is no channel rot as they do not see any cracks or tree roots but aside from that i'm getting opinions that range from tunneling under (like the first guy) to as little as jetting out the pipe and variations of fixes in between. I want to fix the issue so that i don't have to keep dealing with it but at this point it seems like the plumbers are more interested in their commission checks. I just can't imagine that plumbing is subjective enough to get such drastic differences in proposed work needed. The last plumber i had look at the video is one that does commercial plumbing for a friend of my dad's so the thought is that he may be the most trustworthy. He said that jetting the line wouldn't help as the sludge has hardened over time and the high pressure water wouldn't remove much if any of it. He didn't see evidence of channel rot but did see two bellies and proposes to do some tunneling from the outside and some from the inside of the house to fix it. He is also concerned that there may not be enough pitch to gravity drain and thinks that could be an issue outside of the house. I'm supposed to check to see if the cleanout has water at the bottom. He also hasn't seen the house, just the video with a description of the house/issue. I'm hoping that someone can give me some advice on what to do. I'm a first time home buyer and while handy at some stuff, I'm lost on plumbing and am concerned about doing unnecessary work. Thanks to anyone that can help!
if he starts cutting in the wrong place
