DrainVids.com

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.

Drain Addict — “Blocked Drain 935” — Bathroom sewage system clogged with demolition debris

Oliver (Drain Addict @ YouTube; Drain Go) has been called in by Isaac, a plumber, to clear a blocked drain for a newly-renovated bathroom. Isaac had already cut the stack pipe in a crawlspace area, and pulled out what appears to be fragments of tile or other demolition debris from the old bathroom. The drain camera reveals that there is additional debris in the line.

Some more of the easy-to-reach fragments are pulled out by hand by Oliver, including what appears to be an old drain grate of some sort. Once he removes all of the debris that he can reach, he decides to use the high-pressure water jetter to pull back the remaining debris where possible, with the rest of it being pushed toward the boundary trap. A plunging rod with a disc on the end has been inserted down the boundary shaft to try to catch any material before it ends up in the trap.

Oliver starts jetting the line and removes some more of the looser debris, but a subsequent camera investigation shows a significant blockage. He changes to a smaller jetting nozzle, which does get more of the rocky fragments out, including a small unknown mushroom-like object. After using the camera again, Oliver switches to a reverse nozzle, to try to blast the larger pieces out. The camera reveals that some of the chunks were removed, but some still remain. The nozzle is changed once more, and some more jetting is done, with an old tampon eventually being brought back on the end of the hose.

Instead of jetting some more, Oliver decides to try sucking out the debris using a wet/dry vacuum. He puts the vacuum hose down the pipe, and although some pieces are removed by the vacuum, the work is still going very slowly.

He begins to remove some slabs on the floor surrounding the pipe, and then begins digging down into the ground using his hands. Since the soil appears to be quite soft and sandy, it’s easy for him to quickly clear away a lot of it, revealing more of the drainage pipe. A handheld reciprocating saw is used to cut through some of the drain pipe, and this allows for several fittings and some pipe to be removed.

With the blockage now more easily accessible, Oliver is able to remove some more chunks by hand. Some of the chunks are quite large and firmly wedged into the pipe. He begins to pull out more of the debris, and piles it on top of one of the floor slabs he’d moved earlier. Although he manages to get most of the pieces, the camera shows that there is some remaining debris just beyond his reach. The jetter is used again to clear away some of this debris, although further camera inspection still reveals more pieces. Some more jetting is done to try to clear them away.

Oliver runs some water through the system to try to flush out any remaining debris, but when he checks the plunger that was inserted into the boundary shaft earlier, it doesn’t seem to have caught anything.

The larger drain camera is then inserted into the drain. Some sand and debris are still observed in the line, so some more jetting is done to try to push them to the boundary trap. After reaching the boundary trap with the nozzle, more water is run down the drain pipe. Some additional camera work shows that the pipe is clear, but the rod blocking the boundary shaft didn’t catch it. To ensure that the boundary trap is cleared, Isaac jets it.

Some toilet paper is then placed in the drain pipe, and Isaac pours a bucket of water down the pipe to simulate a toilet flush. Oliver watches at the boundary shaft to ensure it drains through fine.

Isaac then replaces the pipes and fittings that had to be removed earlier to gain access to the blockage.