i have a real slow kitchen drain. my laundry room is next to the kitchen. my washing machine is right behind my kitchen sink and they hook to the same drain pipe a few inches apart. when the washing machine empties my kitchen sink fills up. i have ran a snake down the drain and down the vent from the roof. i dont have the money right now to call a plumber. any ideals? any type of drain cleaner? please help

 

I'm not a plumber, But you can try this drain opener (not sure on the brand, but the bottle has 2 seperate openings, for them to mix together when you poor it) It works great, i have drain problems everyonce in awhile because i live in an apartment, an im pretty sure my neighbor shoves hair down the drain daily. Theres 2 different bottles it comes in, get the black one. Thats the "commerical" drail opener. The bottle says use only half, but i use the entire thing. Good luck man.

 

all those probably empty into a 3 or 4 inch main drain line. do u have a cleanout in the basement?? there should be at least one. what size snake did u use?? the roof vent might not br "wet vented" meaning not connected dircectly to the drain. uts hard to diagnose without being there.

 

I can't take a bunch of time now because I have to get to Taco Bell to fix some of their plumbing problems, but I'll try to help later today.

How old is the house? Can you tell what material the drain piping is? Has there been changes to the origional plumbing?

 

I like plumbing...

You might need to take apart the drain trap and see what is going on with it.

 

no basement it is a slab house. the vent goes straight up. i used a 25 foot snake.

the house was built in 1953. the piping is cast iron. the only changes to the original plumbing that i know of is under the sink is pvc.

 

I usually don't reccomend the use of drain cleaners because usually if the drain is that clogged, you end up throwing money down the sewer with your average drain cleaner. Having said that, it a worst case scenario, we use Clobber brand drain cleaner. It's a sulfuric acid based cleaner. It's extremely caustic. If you choose this route, please follow the directions.

If the water goes down eventually. or if the water only backs up into the kitchen sink when the clothes washer drains it sounds like a partial blockage.

I did one the other day where I put twenty five feet of snake in the drain. It still wouldn't drain. I could tell by how fast the drain backed up that the blockage was a lot closer than twenty five feet. I snaked the drain again and got the water to start moving. This time I was only at about ten feet. I worked the snake in this spot and eventually got the drain clear. It was roots in the drain. Sometimes the blockage can close up around the snake. It can be necessary to work the cutter through to break up the clog.

What size is the pipe going through the roof? If it's three inch or larger you probably aren't going into the drain serving the laundry and kitchen sink. Here in MA, the modern plumbing code requires that a kitchen and laundry drain independantly into a three inch drain. That's not necessarly how they did things fifty some odd years ago.

Here's a suggestion that you could try. Get a test plug from the hardware store that will fit the laundry standpipe. Here it would be an inch and a half pipe. Use a plunger at the kitchen sink. If it's a double bowl, plug one side with a rag. If there is a decent abount of resistance, you might have to work at it. If you plunge and there's no resistance but the water doesn't go down then it's just going up the vent and no matter how much effort you put in, it's probably not going to work.

That's all I've got for now. It's kind of hard to make suggestions without seeing the situation. You can get it but it'll require patience.

Good luck!

 

we use this stuf i think its called " grand slam" or something like that. like wittom said be careful with that stuff.

 

Hey Wittom

What do you yhink of Drian pigs My businesss is in an old building with
castiron floor drains. I've unstopped with the pig deveral times. BUUUUUT The casting on the T I have to get the pig thru is turning the opposite way. Follaige gets into the line {no matter how hard I try to prevent it} Is there a cleaner that will not destroy the pipes that I can use on a weekly scedual?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or Wittisisms.

 

Wittisism, eh? I don't know much, but I've been in the plumbing field for a few years now. I just feel that people should have their plumbing figured out. Beyond that, I don't know if I actually bring anything to the table other than a few pig headed opinions.

Drain pig. I like that one. We say "I bagged the drain". Doesn't sound right, does it?

I think that a drain pig can be very effective. My only concern is that if you don't know where the water is going there is a potential for flooding an area away from where you're at. In your situation is sounds like the right tool. It can be tough if the blockage is on the upstream side of a wye fitting.

Sometimes we'll use a snake with a cutter, that will break up the blockage but not move it. The bag, or pig, puts a little head pressure behind the blockage to help it get moving. It sucks when it doesn't work though because when you go to get the bag back out of the drain, you can have quite a mess.

Oh, and my girl just informed me that "witticism" is actually a word. I did not know that.

 

well i know a bunch a words, just can't spell em.
Yea the pig works. but i'm getten to gimped for that plumbing work.

 

so were would i get clobber brand drain cleaner?

 

were would i get it?

 

we get it from a supplier. any hardware /home deopt will have similar brand. its not cheap though. did you try taking apart the trap under the sink? you said your sink is filling up so the clog isnt there but you might be able to get the snake in the main line where the trap connects to the line going in the wall. careful with that snake also. dont force it to much. cast iron is very strong but..it is also brittle and it been there for 50 years. i you punch a hole thru that then you got major problems.. ask me how i learned that lesson.

 

We get Clobber at the plumbing supply. I don't know if the stuff at the Home Depot is as strong. I believe that you are supposed to be a plumber to get Clobber. You might be able to find a plumbing supplier that will sell it to you.

A drain snake is really the best way to go. The thing is, in your situation you need to try to get the snake in through the waste arm of the kitchen sink. To do this you have to remove the trap. If the trap has been changed to PVC this might not be too difficult. The hard part then is getting the snake to go down the drain. If there is a proper waste and vent system in the house, and there could be because by the 50's it was a regualr practice, then the waste are goes into a TY. When you try to get a snake into a TY there is a tendency for it to go up the vent rather than down the drain. I don't know why it happens this way but it happens all the time. It can take several tries just to get the snake to go down the pipe.

I don't know what you have for a snake but a power snake is really what's needed to get through a blockage. I've tried to use hand snakes but they just don't do the job.

Like keith97xlt said, there is always the potential to break something. I've had stuff break many, many times. Usually by the time I get there things are in pretty rough shape. If something breaks the whole job can escalate into something much more complicated, and you might even need to get a plumber involved.

The above reasons are why I mentioned the drain cleaner. I tend to look at a situation in such a way that I can find a way to solve the problem without turing it into a big job, because I'd rather have my customer decide how they spend their money. They are more likely to call us back if I can just take care of the immediate issue. When possible I inform the customer of possible issues that could arise and also reccomend additional fixes. You said you don't want to spend the money for a plumber, the drain cleaner might get that result.