Penetrator Blocked Drains — “Blocked Drain 502” — Roots clogging a septic system leach field
Gavin (Penetrator Blocked Drains @ YouTube; Turbo Plumbing Solutions) is in a relatively rural area, at a property with a septic system leach field that isn’t draining properly.
He removes the lid of the leaching field’s distribution box, and the box itself is full of wastewater. While wearing a long, shoulder-length glove, he feels around beneath the surface of the water to try to locate the pipes connecting to the box. Afterward, he notes that there are some large trees near where the leach field pipes likely are, leading him to suspect that their roots may have entered the leaching pipes.
Using the high-pressure water jetter, he begins to clean one of the leach field’s pipes. He encounters what seems to be a blockage, and after working at it briefly, the water in the distribution box does start to drain away. It doesn’t take long for the box to almost completely empty.
After removing the hose from the first pipe that was jetted, he moves it over to another one of the pipes connecting to the distribution box. As he jets this one, though, it becomes apparent that it’s the pipe bringing wastewater into the distribution box. He removes the hose from that pipe, and then begins to jet up another outgoing leach field pipe that he initially thought was higher up in the box, and thus the input. Gavin notes that the distribution box might not be level, resulting in only one of the output pipes possibly handling the bulk of the wastewater.
He does some more jetting with a different nozzle to try to break up what seems to be roots in the line as much as possible, and he ends up pulling some of them back when removing the hose. With the distribution box no longer retaining water, he replaces its concrete lid.