Strange white stuff

Does it float? If so, fat. The rice grains suggest fat from Chinese, Indian, risotto or rice pudding. :-)

Almost certainly fat. I'm a lot more careful about not putting fat done our drains since the one that takes water from our kitchen sink was dug up during building work.

This is what we found.

Tim

My MIL has been using something called Aqueous Cream on her skin and it gets into the bathwater. From what I can gather its a very thick emulsion of paraffin and water.

A couple of times I've had to clear out blockages where the bathroom downpipe and the kitchen sink outlets merge. I assume it separates out as the drained water cools.

Not pleasant - but now I know to check every 18 months or so which prevents backing up.

Sounds like fat to me as well.

Urrrrgh!, think what thats doing to your arteries;!....

It's almost certainly fat. Having unblocked masses of the stuff over the years from various drains and manholes, and knowing the cost and amount of work involved in replacing sections of drain that have needed breaking to remove such blockages, I never put any animal fats down the drains, vegetable oils are usually OK because they normally stay liquified, but drippings from cooking meat, especially sausages, get's scraped into the bin once solidified or poured in when only slightly warm.

But that's the stuff that *isn't* in his arteries! (Unless he scoops it out and ingests or injects it. :-( )

Phil

Any chance of some unblocking tips mate? I can be more specific about the drains at my house if it helps.

Best rods, rodding from above or below (I know of one pitfall to avoid!), getting the rods into the hole when it is under 5 feet of you know what, clearing fat on a long run when 4 houses share the run.

Adam

If you do a quick sketch and post it at tinypic, it'll be easier to understand. Show assumed drain runs, manholes and outline each property, with position of stacks - forget rainwater and wastewater gullies.

if the stack(s) have rodding eyes, obviously it's better to do it from above (as I found out aged 18 when a full stack of fortnight old s*it dropped into a manhole I was rodding, needless to say, it went up in the air about 8 feet, and from that day to this I've never looked at sweetcorn in the same way) but if push comes to shove, you may need to do it from below, sou' wester on standby.

Cheers

I will tinypic you the insides of the various manhole covers involved after Thursday (I am not at home until then) along with any diagrams of any known drainage runs that I know of.

You can actually climb down the manhole at the house below me (this manhole is the one below my blockage) and there are two "inputs" into it. It takes two of us to lift the cover.

Adam

That looks just like it. Thanks!

NT

probably partially emulsified oils and fats.

bung a half tub of caustic and a few kettles of hot water down drains every 6 months.

Cleans this sort of stuff well.

If you're on a shared drain, it's usually the water company's responsibility, certainly if the house is pre 1930. In our area Thames Water come within 4 hours, and there's no charge

In message , ARWadsworth writes

I had the problem of our drains being blocked by fat (from previous owners, must have built up over years given the amount that came out)

It was in an awkward position down stream from a trap after a 90 degree bend, about 7-8 meters upstream from the manhole. Acess with rods didn't work as they got stuck at an junction partway along.

I bought a drain cleaning attachment for my Karcher pressure washer. Not cheap (esp as I bought it in a shed), but it did the job, and has been used a couple more times to clean other bits of drain.

e.g.