Clearing Drains with Air Pressure

[Tekkie®]

[e-mail] posted for all of us...

+1 What I was going to suggest.

[Don Y]

We grew all of ours from seed. They grow fast (here, we have a very long growing season) -- especially if aggressively watered. I think it was less than three years to get as tall as me.

The downside is that they produce a lot of litter (seed pods). So, we remove the pods from the tree before they get a chance to "dry" (ripen?) and dispense their cargo to the coil, below.

Otherwise, you end up with *hundreds* of volunteers each season -- from each tree!

I've had very limited success trying to recover volunteers from the Texas Mountain Laurel: fabulously fragrant flowers -- smells like grape juice as you walk to our front door! Apparently, they send a deep tap root long before much appears above the surface. And, this root is easily damaged.

So, trick is to dig down *deep* with the tiniest of volunteers and transfer to a pot. Then, after getting established, move to a permanent location in the yard. I've done this successfully twice, now. I need 2 more successes.

Downside is they take FOREVER to grow! :<

Absolutely *no* luck trying to cultivate anything off the razzleberry: another spectacular bloomer -- though no apparent fragrance. I suspect the plants may be sterile (?)

[TomR]

I had already removed the entire ceiling in the living room below the second floor bath and I now have full access to the sink and bathtub drain lines from underneath. They are both the old style narrow lead pipes, and they both just come through the floor above and run horizontally right along the bottom of the floor -- with each one ending into the side of the toilet waste line. There really is no way to increase the pitch based on where they are now and where they currently tie into the sewer line. I have photos from underneath and I could post them, but I'll probably pass on doing that since what I just described is really the whole story.

Now that everything is open from underneath, I think that I am probably going to run new PVC sink and tub drain lines and route them in a different direction down inside the living room walls and into the unfinished basement. Then, I'll tie them into the 4-inch horizontal main sewer line in the basement. That would allow me to use a larger PVC drain pipe size (probably 1 1/2 inch PVC) and create plenty of pitch, and have both fixtures drain directly into the main horizontal sewer line in the basement.

That's really the only good fix for what I have now, but I just have to muster up the energy and the time to go ahead and do that. If I do that, the slow drain and easy clog issues that exist now will be gone forever.

[Muggles]

It may be a hybrid, I'm thinking. It's also called Chinese Fringe flower, at least that what it looks like. You can probably propagate it using stem cuttings, or bury some branches in the dirt with a couple of leaf nodes buried in the dirt and the rest of the branch growing above ground. Maybe treat the nodes that'll be buried with rooting hormone and keep it buried for a month or so. Roots should develop at the buried leaf nodes, and you can cut it off from the rest of the bush taking the roots and branch and replanting it.

[DerbyDad03]

Just keep in mind that running the pipes down the living room wall may introduce noise from the water running through. The issue is:discussed here...

[Don Y]

We won't take "extraordinary measures" with these. We've tried 3 or 4 "store bought" plants to complement the ~8 ft bush we already have. None of them have fared well. So, we suspect it's a fluke that the *one* has done well at all!

Sad as it truly is an attractive plant!

[Muggles]

The bush that is growing well already may be native, and the other bushes grown elsewhere. That's one idea of why the new bushes don't do well.

[Don Y]

No. I planted it.

[Muggles]

Well ... the other bushes just didn't like you then, I guess. :)

[TomR]

That's true. I think the noise problem with PVC vs. cast iron is worse with

3-inch or 4-inch PVC for the toilet flushing. I will be leaving the cast iron stack for the toilet in place, but the new vertical PVC in the LR wall will be for the 2nd floor sink drain and tub drain. I may do some extra insulating for the sound, but I am not sure. However, I did something similar in another property for a 2nd floor sink and tub drain and I didn't do any sound insulating and the noise level isn't really a problem.

[hrhofmann]

I have read that there is a preferred pitch for sink waste lines and it mig ht be different for toilet waste lines. There is some particular slope/pit ch that is optimal for carrying the waste products along the pipe> Too flat and nothing moves vey well, but too steep and the water runs off too fast leaving the waste behind. I don't have an answer, just remember reading ab out the problem somewhere over the last 10 years or so.

[Tekkie®]

[e-mail] posted for all of us...

DAGS or ask AHJ.

[Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney]

"Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney" wrote in message news: [e-mail]...

blockages. I can see that could be useful where there are too many elbows in a small diameter pipe for a regular snake. Anyone have experience using pressure like this?

plugged first. And also what's a reasonable high pressure limit?

there are 4 elbows before it gets to the main house drain. I was able to clear out part of the piping with a small diameter snake, but not all. Eventually got it cleared out alternating boiling water, then flushing with hot water, then drano, water flush, snake, etc. Also make a tight connection from the hot water faucet to the 1-1/2 standpipe and ran it until it flowed normally. All this worked, but it took a lot of time.

Well, I pulled the outlet house out of the standpipe, connected a hose to the hot water spigot and turned in on full blast into the standpipe and it never even started to back up. Flow was much faster than the washer puts out. Just for fun, I gave it the hot water treatment plus 2 drano dumps, then replaced the washer hose.

Then I saw that the hose had backed out of the pipe and turned so that the water was now hitting the walls and not going directly down. I turned it and put some silicone around it to keep it from turning and took care of the backing up.

[Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney]

"Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney" wrote in message news: [e-mail]... "Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney" wrote in message news: [e-mail]...

blockages. I can see that could be useful where there are too many elbows in a small diameter pipe for a regular snake. Anyone have experience using pressure like this?

plugged first. And also what's a reasonable high pressure limit?

there are 4 elbows before it gets to the main house drain. I was able to clear out part of the piping with a small diameter snake, but not all. Eventually got it cleared out alternating boiling water, then flushing with hot water, then drano, water flush, snake, etc. Also make a tight connection from the hot water faucet to the 1-1/2 standpipe and ran it until it flowed normally. All this worked, but it took a lot of time.

Well, I pulled the outlet house out of the standpipe, connected a hose to the hot water spigot and turned in on full blast into the standpipe and it never even started to back up. Flow was much faster than the washer puts out. Just for fun, I gave it the hot water treatment plus 2 drano dumps, then replaced the washer hose.

Then I saw that the hose had backed out of the pipe and turned so that the water was now hitting the walls and not going directly down. I turned it and put some silicone around it to keep it from turning and took care of the backing up.

And, yes, I sealed that sucker water and air tight. I was hoping that would kill the pump by now, but with my luck it will probably be there long after I'm gone.

[TomR]

Oops, I don't think you are supposed to seal the washer discharge hose in the drain pipe where it is air tight and water tight. Anything that pumps water into any drain line is supposed to have an air gap in the system. That prevents the stuff in the sewer line from backing up into the water supply system. If you do a Google search for ---> sewer drain air gap

[Tekkie®]

TomR posted for all of us...

[Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney]

[Dean Hoffman]

Would a plumbing auto vent be a better solution?

[TomR]

I think you could do something like that, but I would try to have the Tee come off of the PVC pipe and then go to the outside. Or, maybe it could be another "Y" like the one you have now and place it below the existing Y. Or, put the washer pump-out hose into the top of the existing PVC and run an overflow from the side of the exiting Y to the outside.

[Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney]

In this case, the Y is completely inside the wall. I will have to connect a tees between the Y and the washer hose.