This is a bit of a saga so sorry if there's information overload but I tend to figure better too much info than too little.
My husband & I bought our first home, a HUD foreclosure, just after Christmas. We are in South Dakota, btw. It's a modular on a semi-finished basement. It has 3 toilets upstairs (2 back-to-back) and one downstairs (that one's on an ejector pump) About a week after we moved in, all the upstairs toilets clogged and the bottom one seemed to work but sent bubbles up the line and made the tubs backup. So we called a Drain-cleaner guy and he ran a camera through our lines and had no trouble until he hit a wall about 5 feet out from the house heading to the city sewer. And then he couldn't find a clean-out. So he suspected the sewer line had collapsed.
So we had a contractor come out, he dug up where the dead-end was and found a buried clean-out and that the sewer line had separated from the house as the dirt settled. He replaced everything and installed a new clean-out up top. He said the pipes weren't glued properly before and that he assumed the rest of the line out to the street would be the same but that it was all downhill to the street and properly pea-graveled and that we should be fine.
All of this was done January 17th. Everything has been fine since then. And then Thursday morning (the 30th), the back-to-back toilets clogged. My husband was home alone getting ready for work. Bath, toilet and clogged. He
plunged repeatedly but couldn't get them to work. Part of the trouble is when you plunge one, the water in the other seems to move, too. So we called the camera-drain-cleaners and arranged for them to come out Friday morning. I did some googling at work and when I got home that evening, I put some Dawn dishsoap down the two toilets, let them sit about 15 minutes and then poured a bucket of barely-warm water in the toilets and they both flushed fine. We thought it was probably due to the flushable wipes my husband has been addicted to using and he finally agreed, no more using them. (they were cottonelle brand which Consumer Reports says do break up after several hours.) So I canceled the camera/drain guy.
Saturday morning the doorbell rings and it's the contractor. He'd heard from the drain guy and was in the neighborhood so he wanted to check in. He was concerned it might be the sewer line, farther down where he didn't check. I told him our theory about the wipes and he agreed that we should discontinue their use and told us to let him know if we have any further issues. I thought that was pretty kind of him.
Then Sunday morning the toilets clogged again. Plunging didn't fix anything. Pouring warm water and dishsoap didn't fix anything. A friend of ours mentioned there may be a problem where the two toilets connect so I went to town and bought a toilet-auger. (Like if they used a T-connection instead of a Y-connection or something.) I could only find the 3-ft kind of toilet auger which I'm not sure would be long enough but I had to get something. When I got home I tried the buckets again and the toilets seem to be flushing just fine again so I never used it.
But now I'm paranoid. What if the line is partially broken further down after all and the reason the toilets suddenly magically clear is the water dissipating outside? We've decided to only use one of the two toilets for a week or so and see if anything happens again. But should we call the camera guy to check the lines to be on the safe side? It's over $200 for him to come out but maybe we should spend it for peace of mind? The 3rd toilet upstairs seems to work when the two are clogged but maybe that's just because it's on the other end of the house and we never use it so it's pipes aren't full?
I called the contractor this morning and he advised we open up the clean-out, stick a hose about half-way down, and run it while using a flashlight to peer down and see if everything drains properly or starts to backup. He said that'd at least help us narrow things down to problem inside vs outside. Not really looking forward to that since it's about 16 degrees outside but better today than tomorrow when our high is supposed to be 7.
Will that work? Or will the water head into the house instead of away?
On a possibly separate note, I also noticed a little water on the cover of the ejector pump when I checked out the utility room downstairs yesterday morning. The green light by the pump alarm was on so it looked like everything was functioning ok. But we've never even used that bathroom other than to test it. And water just sitting on the cover seems odd?
My husband & I bought our first home, a HUD foreclosure, just after Christmas. We are in South Dakota, btw. It's a modular on a semi-finished basement. It has 3 toilets upstairs (2 back-to-back) and one downstairs (that one's on an ejector pump) About a week after we moved in, all the upstairs toilets clogged and the bottom one seemed to work but sent bubbles up the line and made the tubs backup. So we called a Drain-cleaner guy and he ran a camera through our lines and had no trouble until he hit a wall about 5 feet out from the house heading to the city sewer. And then he couldn't find a clean-out. So he suspected the sewer line had collapsed.
So we had a contractor come out, he dug up where the dead-end was and found a buried clean-out and that the sewer line had separated from the house as the dirt settled. He replaced everything and installed a new clean-out up top. He said the pipes weren't glued properly before and that he assumed the rest of the line out to the street would be the same but that it was all downhill to the street and properly pea-graveled and that we should be fine.
All of this was done January 17th. Everything has been fine since then. And then Thursday morning (the 30th), the back-to-back toilets clogged. My husband was home alone getting ready for work. Bath, toilet and clogged. He
plunged repeatedly but couldn't get them to work. Part of the trouble is when you plunge one, the water in the other seems to move, too. So we called the camera-drain-cleaners and arranged for them to come out Friday morning. I did some googling at work and when I got home that evening, I put some Dawn dishsoap down the two toilets, let them sit about 15 minutes and then poured a bucket of barely-warm water in the toilets and they both flushed fine. We thought it was probably due to the flushable wipes my husband has been addicted to using and he finally agreed, no more using them. (they were cottonelle brand which Consumer Reports says do break up after several hours.) So I canceled the camera/drain guy.
Saturday morning the doorbell rings and it's the contractor. He'd heard from the drain guy and was in the neighborhood so he wanted to check in. He was concerned it might be the sewer line, farther down where he didn't check. I told him our theory about the wipes and he agreed that we should discontinue their use and told us to let him know if we have any further issues. I thought that was pretty kind of him.
Then Sunday morning the toilets clogged again. Plunging didn't fix anything. Pouring warm water and dishsoap didn't fix anything. A friend of ours mentioned there may be a problem where the two toilets connect so I went to town and bought a toilet-auger. (Like if they used a T-connection instead of a Y-connection or something.) I could only find the 3-ft kind of toilet auger which I'm not sure would be long enough but I had to get something. When I got home I tried the buckets again and the toilets seem to be flushing just fine again so I never used it.
But now I'm paranoid. What if the line is partially broken further down after all and the reason the toilets suddenly magically clear is the water dissipating outside? We've decided to only use one of the two toilets for a week or so and see if anything happens again. But should we call the camera guy to check the lines to be on the safe side? It's over $200 for him to come out but maybe we should spend it for peace of mind? The 3rd toilet upstairs seems to work when the two are clogged but maybe that's just because it's on the other end of the house and we never use it so it's pipes aren't full?
I called the contractor this morning and he advised we open up the clean-out, stick a hose about half-way down, and run it while using a flashlight to peer down and see if everything drains properly or starts to backup. He said that'd at least help us narrow things down to problem inside vs outside. Not really looking forward to that since it's about 16 degrees outside but better today than tomorrow when our high is supposed to be 7.
Will that work? Or will the water head into the house instead of away?
On a possibly separate note, I also noticed a little water on the cover of the ejector pump when I checked out the utility room downstairs yesterday morning. The green light by the pump alarm was on so it looked like everything was functioning ok. But we've never even used that bathroom other than to test it. And water just sitting on the cover seems odd?
