SLH350
New Member
So we've been in our new house for approximately 2 weeks. It's a 1918 build that was recently completely restored and remodeled for resale by a building company. Basically a flipper. I'm usually wary of such things but we loved the house, location, etc, I digress. I come to you seeking some professional perspective as to whether this may be a result of someone cutting corners in plumbing the house. All the plumbing was redone in the house earlier this year so I'm at a loss as to why we would be having an issue after occupying it for 2 weeks unless it's A. A city problem on that side of the waste line or B. Someone messed something up.
The current situation:
A week ago we found a decent amount of water puddling in the basement coming from a PVC line.
The home warranty folks sent a plumber out who deduced that the issue was just a failure to tighten the cap down properly, he tightened it further and applied sealant to it to prevent any future leakage. I'm in the military and was gone during all this so I didn't have a chance to QA the fix but it sounded simple enough. Come to find out this PVC line is actually the main waste line for the house that runs out to the city hookup. This is where things get even more fun.
Earlier today I ran the dishwasher as I do most evenings and my wife noticed a 'glug glug' noise from the first floor toilet. Upon running down to the basement we found a sizable amount of sewage pouring up out of the waste line for the washing machine (also located in the basement). I killed the dishwasher and the flow stopped. In an attempt to determine what all would affect the issue I had my wife try the kitchen sink as well as flushing one of the upstairs toilets (stupid in hindsight but oh well). I could clearly hear the flow come down through the waste line and hit right about where the Y fitting brings the waste water from the washing machine to the main waste line. It sounded to me like the backup had to be downstream of the washing machine line connection to the main line and somewhere in the general vicinity of the cap that was leaking a week prior. It seems like a small amount of flow, like just the kitchen sink running, will not cause the backflow, but a toilet flush, the dishwasher draining, or even my wife dumping a full bowl of water into the kitchen sink will trigger it. My thought is maybe a partial blockage, but I don't know if something they did with that cap could've caused that.
Attached are pictures of the waste lines coming down from the back corner of the house, through the crawl space, into the laundry room, and out the front of the basement. I can't imagine I've done anything to clog a waste line in such a short amount of time so I'm really at a loss as to what could've caused this.
Any input/insight that I can bring to the table when discussing this with the plumber the builder sends out as well as my insurance company would be greatly appreciated.
The current situation:
A week ago we found a decent amount of water puddling in the basement coming from a PVC line.
The home warranty folks sent a plumber out who deduced that the issue was just a failure to tighten the cap down properly, he tightened it further and applied sealant to it to prevent any future leakage. I'm in the military and was gone during all this so I didn't have a chance to QA the fix but it sounded simple enough. Come to find out this PVC line is actually the main waste line for the house that runs out to the city hookup. This is where things get even more fun.
Earlier today I ran the dishwasher as I do most evenings and my wife noticed a 'glug glug' noise from the first floor toilet. Upon running down to the basement we found a sizable amount of sewage pouring up out of the waste line for the washing machine (also located in the basement). I killed the dishwasher and the flow stopped. In an attempt to determine what all would affect the issue I had my wife try the kitchen sink as well as flushing one of the upstairs toilets (stupid in hindsight but oh well). I could clearly hear the flow come down through the waste line and hit right about where the Y fitting brings the waste water from the washing machine to the main waste line. It sounded to me like the backup had to be downstream of the washing machine line connection to the main line and somewhere in the general vicinity of the cap that was leaking a week prior. It seems like a small amount of flow, like just the kitchen sink running, will not cause the backflow, but a toilet flush, the dishwasher draining, or even my wife dumping a full bowl of water into the kitchen sink will trigger it. My thought is maybe a partial blockage, but I don't know if something they did with that cap could've caused that.
Attached are pictures of the waste lines coming down from the back corner of the house, through the crawl space, into the laundry room, and out the front of the basement. I can't imagine I've done anything to clog a waste line in such a short amount of time so I'm really at a loss as to what could've caused this.
Any input/insight that I can bring to the table when discussing this with the plumber the builder sends out as well as my insurance company would be greatly appreciated.