Water drains from kitchen sink

Re: Water drains from kitchen sink

David Yoho

Thanks for the update. I was about to post asking how you fared. Can you elaborate on the filter you mentioned? I'm not sure I've heard of one being in a drain line that's headed to the sewer or septic system. Glad you got it fixed.

social distancing

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Once I was in the thick (it was THICK) of it during my several trips to Lowes (chemicals, then snake, then another snake to replace the kinked one, then 2" coupling, then the correct 1.5" coupling, oh my!) people seemed to socially distance themselves from me. I probably should have worn clean pants and shirt.

Re: Water drains from kitchen sink

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

An unknown constriction down stream "filtered" the crap released by the bleach upstream. Drainage came to a soul crushing halt. So it was start all over.

Re: Water drains from kitchen sink

Joe shelton

Guy I apprenticed with told me "All you need to know to be a plumber is 'stuff' flows downhill, and the liquor store closes at seven o'clock."

He was not a plumber.

I know that it pays to know one.

Re: Water drains from kitchen sink

John K Jordan

I don't like working on plumbing.

I don't think I like anyone who likes working on plumbing.

I am thankful there are people who will work on plumbing if I pay them, whether they like it or not.

Re: Water drains from kitchen sink

Mark Nowicki

My tool rental place rents inspection cameras.

Re: social distancing

Mark Nowicki

Before the pandemic, telling people to keep the heck away from me was considered rude.

Now it is a public service announcement.

Re: Water drains from kitchen sink

John McGaw

Congratulations on your success and learning process.

I, too, have a sometimes-difficult kitchen sink, the most distant drain in the house to where the main pipe leads down to the road. I've learned that, after a few clogs and self-help attempts, that having a good plumber on the speed dial helps. The only way to truly get a snake down this particular drain is to carry the power rooter machine up to the roof and run the snake down the kitchen vent to avoid a couple of impossible elbows and my favored plumber is willing to haul his machine up there. While he is at it I pay him to run the snake down every vent pipe on the roof down as far as the main drain, just in case.

Root cause of the problem, possible solution

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Because I cut the line midway I could observe its condition within.

The "common knowledge" is that grease plugs drains. I think not in this case. What was flushed out was a gelatinous floc of biological growth. I think growth began to accumulate on the pipe surface, fed by ample nutrients that go down the drain. There is little slope on this long drain so no shear to peel the growth off the surface. Eventually (25 years) this growth filled the line. I saw no evidence that fat/grease was a large component of the deposit. It looked to me to be gelatinous goop, food particles and some mineral particles. It readily dispersed when hit with a stream of water (collected from line in bucket and examined outdoors).

Assuming this scenario is correct, the solution is a dose of chlorine bleach down the drain from time to time. In this case a quart of bleach freed this deposit from the pipes up to the point where all the loose crap replugged the line downstream. Whereas the first time I snaked the line there was lots of resistance, the second time it was just a matter of breaking up the loose, and presumably dead, gelatinous gunk and flow returned.

If this theory is correct and common, simply snaking is not a long term solution. The snake will dig a hole through the deposit but the pipe walls will still be coated, likely more than less, with growth anxious to resume. Killing the growth will clean the growth from the walls.

This theory bears further investigation. Now that I have a place to observe the interior of the pipe I shall see if a yearly dose of bleach keeps the line free of goop.

SUCCESS!!!

kneale brownson

I used to have a similar issue with a kitchen drain from one side of a rental house to the outlet to the sewer on the other side of the house. The line had to jog some to get to the proper alignment, so I cut out an elbow and installed a T so that I could add a cleanout and cap. Allowed for easy occasional snaking. Couldn't rely on renters to do your chemical dosing occasionally.

Re: Root cause of the problem, possible solution

Buck Nall

After reading ''root cause", I just wondered if a body took a full/new package of AlcaSeltzer, crushed'm up so they'd go down/past sink & pour/follow crush with a gallon of water mixed with bleach. Not enuff volume of water & bleach to penetrate very far. Recon would that blow that junk OUT?

your theory is my practice

David Weaver

As mentioned in the other thread, I probably do this once every two years.

Like you, I've never seen a grease ball or anything else that would make me think grease is the issue - it's more like super fine black turd smelling algae - I think it has its own little starship enterprise style culture in that line.

Each time I snake it, I feel like I haven't really moved much, but each time, it's good for several years.

I think this is good policy because it doesn't involve bleach or guessing and then the line is in sort of a relative steady state. I'm not convinced you can get enough bleach in contact with the layer of stuff (perhaps you can kill what's on the surface of it) to do much. I think it gets diluted and if anything, whatever is left behind is just food for the next set of starfleet sink drain cadets.

If you have an easy access cleanout, as soon as it's slow each time, put your rubber gloves on, grab your towel, and unlike this time (where you managed to find hard fossilized stuff), everything will be soft.

it'll still stink, but it takes about 15 minutes to do in that case, the plumber stays away and you won't have the saga of the first go around.

This somewhat reminds me of my youth with our chimney. Each year, we swept the chimney, but we had a "boss" 70s style airtight stove. I don't think our brush was really doing that much.

We took the stove out (low stack temp) and put a fireplace in. As you did with bleach, the heat from the fireplace managed to get everything loose at once. That was bad. The result was probably about 5 million btus of output and smoke coming from the walls and a fire department that had to drop a morningstar type thing from above several times to get through the fiery blockage.

As a kid, I thought it was inconvenient and wasn't allowed to go to my room, so I went to the den of the house and went to sleep on the floor. The house was full of smoke - i have no idea what we were thinking but boy was I got at sleeping back then!!

Long story short, I believe now that you have access, this is something you want to physically control, the stuff in there will be soft as mine is and elimination won't be worth the trouble. Especially over that footage you're dealing with and with a septic on the other end that's full of necessarily living things that gobble poo.

Bleach and septic tank

Steve jenkins

Any thoughts on possible adverse effects of the bleach in the septic tank?

Re: Root cause of the problem, possible solution

Buck Nall

???SECOND THOUGH?? IF I MAY, WAS GETTING SOMETHING TO EAT DELIVERED. I GUESS EMMEDIATELY AFTER POURING BLEACH WATER IN SINK, YA ORTA PLUG/STOPPER IN SINK,SET A 5 GALLON BUCKET OF WATER/SOMETHING IN/OVER STOPPER, TURN ON WATER ABOUT HALF SINK DEPTH & LET sELTZER DO IT'S THING.

Re: Bleach and septic tank

johnv

NOT GOOD. There are several biologic enzyme products that if used regularly will keep that aerobic sludge from building up. As others have stated proper slope is very important.

possible adverse effects of the bleach

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

If enough bleach enters the tank it will kill all the wildlife in it. That would be tens of gallons for a typical sized tank. The quart of bleach I poured into the line had used up all the chlorine before it got to the place I cut the line. There was plenty of odor at the cut but it was not the the odor of bleach!

Re: possible adverse effects of the bleach

Barry Irby

When I was building, I had a grizzled old plumber working for me

Who told me "You don't want to piss off your plumber." Drain lines should have between 1/8 and 1/4" slope per foot. If you install them with less, nearly nothing, it could take years for the drain to stop up. This may be what happened to you Bill.

Re: Bleach and septic tank

Stuart Johnson

The last time I had our septic pumped the guy took one look at the sludge and said you use a lot of bleach don't you? Don't do that it'll kill the enzymes. We have an anaerobic septic system so those little crap eating bugs are important.

Re: Water drains from kitchen sink

Ed Wozniak

I always heard that the three things you need to know to be a plumber are

Crap runs down hill

Don't bite your nails

Payday is on Friday

This is not true of course. It takes a great deal of knowledge and skill to be a productive plumber.