Tommy
New Member
Hi All,
Have a strange problem at my parents home. Their laundry room is in their basement. Also in their basement is a sewage ejector pit. The laundry room sink drains down into the basement slab, so I assume it goes to the ejector pit as the main sewer line right next to the ejector pit is higher then the laundry sink drain.
Yesterday I was running the laundry sink on full blast for about 10 mins and all of a sudden the kitchen sink which is on the second floor above the basement started backing up. It's a double sink and the side of the sink with the garbage disposal started backing up dirty water. After the laundry sink was shut off, the water went down and the kitchen sink seemed to be draining fine.
The strange part is, when the kitchen backup occurred while I was running the laundry sink, the laundry sink wasn't backing up at all. Water was going down the drain with no issue. I went upstairs and ran the kitchen sink to try and figure out if it was somehow connected to the laundry room sink, which would mean it's also going to the ejector pit. I confirmed that wasn't the case as I could hear the water drain directly into the main sewer line.
I noticed there is another PVC pipe coming downstairs into the laundry room which also connects to the drain line where the laundry sink is also draining... I'm assuming it's a vent pipe but I couldn't confirm. At first I thought it was somehow connected with the kitchen drain.. but when I heard the kitchen sink draining to the sewer line on the other side of the basement I ruled that out.
As I mentioned, I'm pretty sure the laundry sink drains to the ejector pit given it goes into the slab. So I'm completely confused how the laundry sink can cause a backup in the kitchen above - and with no water backing up in the laundry sink!
Any thoughts on what could be happening here and what I should do next? Thanks in advance.
-Tommy
Have a strange problem at my parents home. Their laundry room is in their basement. Also in their basement is a sewage ejector pit. The laundry room sink drains down into the basement slab, so I assume it goes to the ejector pit as the main sewer line right next to the ejector pit is higher then the laundry sink drain.
Yesterday I was running the laundry sink on full blast for about 10 mins and all of a sudden the kitchen sink which is on the second floor above the basement started backing up. It's a double sink and the side of the sink with the garbage disposal started backing up dirty water. After the laundry sink was shut off, the water went down and the kitchen sink seemed to be draining fine.
The strange part is, when the kitchen backup occurred while I was running the laundry sink, the laundry sink wasn't backing up at all. Water was going down the drain with no issue. I went upstairs and ran the kitchen sink to try and figure out if it was somehow connected to the laundry room sink, which would mean it's also going to the ejector pit. I confirmed that wasn't the case as I could hear the water drain directly into the main sewer line.
I noticed there is another PVC pipe coming downstairs into the laundry room which also connects to the drain line where the laundry sink is also draining... I'm assuming it's a vent pipe but I couldn't confirm. At first I thought it was somehow connected with the kitchen drain.. but when I heard the kitchen sink draining to the sewer line on the other side of the basement I ruled that out.
As I mentioned, I'm pretty sure the laundry sink drains to the ejector pit given it goes into the slab. So I'm completely confused how the laundry sink can cause a backup in the kitchen above - and with no water backing up in the laundry sink!
Any thoughts on what could be happening here and what I should do next? Thanks in advance.
-Tommy