Unblocking drains

[norm]

Hi,

I've had a few occasions in the last year where my outside drain has blocked, leading to a build up of sewage under the manhole cover and eventually a toilet where the doings don't disapear, if you get my drift.

I am very reluctant to pay anyone to do anything I can do myself and until recently I've been able to sort out the problem with a thirty foot spring thing from B+Q. However, the last blockage could be shifted by no amount of springing. The whole 30 ft was swallowed up but didn't appear to reach the blockage.

I decided enough was enough and got Dynarod round. Dyna-man did the job in a few minutes with a six foot pole with a 4 inch piece of rubber on the end. I couldn't believe it. How annoyed was I ? !!

The theory behind his success as opposed to my failure is that puttiing the spring down just punches a small hole through the blockage.

Thought I'd pass this handy hint on.

norm

[Scott]

OR for about 40quid you can get a 15-20m extension pipe for your pressure washer. I bought one of these... amazing.

They have a speacial outlet nozzell which means it pulls its self along the drain until it starts cutting crap.

[Malc]

Post it through the door of Number 10 will you.

-- Malc

[Scott]

Give it chance mate. It's not that good at wading through shit

[norm]

It's gotta be worth it. There seems to be something inherently inadequate about modern drains.

norm

[Mike]

Or get ten metres of two inch flexible pipe from Machine Mart. Moves anything.

[Dave Baker]

The theory of drain unblocking is very simple. You use the kinetic energy of a large mass of moving water to blast the blockage out of the pipe. Technique is as follows. The 4" rubber plate is designed to be a fairly close fit in a std sewer pipe. Fix this to sufficient length of extension bars to reach the blockage. Pull back about 3 to 6 feet and leave in place for a while until the water has run round the plate and filled the sewer pipe. Pull back the 4" plate sharply and as far as possible to create a void space and abruptly release. The mass of water/debris upstream of the plate will now rush back downstream, carrying the plate with it until it hits the 6' of water upstream of the blockage. A massive hydraulic shock will take place which blows the blockage away. Repeat until the blockage is cleared. Once or twice is usually enough.

Firkling about with corkscrew attachments and other springy things is a girlies excercise which achieves three fifths of f*ck all and like the man says only punches a small hole through the blockage which then immediately blocks up again.

This is not rocket science. Anyone with even a tiny teeny brain and a rudimentary knowledge of hydraulics could work it all out from first principles.

[John Stumbles]

I'm not sure about using 'girlies' as a derogatory term in this context: the very impressive blockage I was dealing with today was caused by half a dozen girlies and they weren't even trying 3 weeks out of 4 ;-)