Drain Addict — “Blocked Drain 938” — Bricks and roots clogging a drain
Oliver (Drain Addict @ YouTube; Drain Go) is working in the backyard of a house where it appears that bricks have been dropped down the boundary shaft, and another blockage is causing a shower and toilet to back up.
He starts by trying to remove the bricks. Using the drain camera, he shows how one brick is already near the connection to the mains, while the other is closer to the boundary shaft. A reverse nozzle is attached to the jetting hose, and this is used, without water, to hook the farthest brick. He’s able to pull it back away from the city’s main line.
The closer brick ends up being pulled back, too, and Oliver puts his entire arm down the drain to try to retrieve the brick by hand. Although it isn’t easy and it does take some effort, with the help of a long screwdriver he’s able to dislodge and then remove the nearest brick.
He uses the reverse nozzle on the jetting hose to once again try to hook the remaining brick that’s still in the drain, but the brick’s alignment makes it difficult to move. After some more work with the jetter, the brick does move somewhat, but still not in a way that allows him to remove it. Eventually, he decides to try to pull the brick back using a wet/dry vacuum, but the vacuum doesn’t seem to have enough suction power to sufficiently attach to the brick.
Oliver moves on to trying a large metal hook on the end of some flexible rods. While he is able to move the brick, he isn’t able to retreive it. With it eventually ending up in the city’s line, he calls the city to have their crew retreive it at some point.
In the home’s bathroom, he begins by jetting down the shower’s drain, to see if that can be used as an access point. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work, so he ends up drilling a hole through the toilet’s porcelain instead. Using that as an access point, he’s able to jet down along the bathroom’s branch line, and he pops the blockage. Much of the backed-up sewage in the shower drains away.
Using the camera through the access hole he drilled in the toilet, Oliver inspects the line and finds that some roots still remain after the initial jetting. He does some more jetting to get those all cleared away.
Once the drain line is clear of roots, he hoses down the more solid chunks of sewage remaining in the shower. He then affixes a rubber stopper to the toilet, to seal up the access hole he had drilled into it earlier. Some cardboard that had been placed down on the floor leading from the back door of the home to the bathroom is cleaned up, and then he uses an old towel to wipe up the water that remains on the tile floor. To confirm that the line is clear, a couple of successful toilet paper flush tests are performed.