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I have a plumbing issue in my house that I am hoping that my tubist brethren can assist with.

Plumbing Layout

I have 5 sinks, 2 toilets, 2 showers, a jacuzzi, washing machine and dishwasher in my house. The waste water goes into a septic tank somewhere in my yard.

Plumbing Issue

Every once in a while our waste water will get backed up. I can usually tell it is going to be a doozy when my washing machine is purging before the rinse cycle and my toilet on the opposite side of the wall is making a bubbling sound. Many times a simple plunging takes care of the issue. Unfortunately, there are times when it appears the whole house is backed up. The toilets, bath tubs and jacuzzi will not drain AND WORSE....flushing the toilet can lead to waste water backing up into the bathtubs and jacuzzi. (Needless to say I keep a couple bottles of bleach on hand for the "post game cleanup.") When the system is completely backed up like that, plunging doesn't seem to do much. The best (and really only) solution I've come up with is having the toilet in the master bath (closest to the last set of pipes headed to the septic tank) filled with water and just let it sit. Eventually I can hear in one of the rooms of the house the sound of rushing water and I know that the blockage is free. From that point on I can do laundry, flush toilets, shower, etc with free flowing drains. It is like the problem never existed.

Sorry for all of the gory details, but I find details help to lead to an actual solution.

Question

Since the complete system backup has happened twice in the last week and it seems like a simple blockage, I want to see what I can do to completely flush out my waste water lines....myself....and "on the cheap." When I was a kid my dad swore by Pequa (http://www.pequa.com) for clogged drains. That stuff was awesome. Unfortunately, it looks like it is sold only in Yankee land. Can anyone recommend a liquid or anything that I can use to do a complete system cleaning? I'm trying to avoid calling Roto-Rooter.

Thanks

LJV wrote:I really doubt you can flush out this problem...

BTW, avoid products like Rid-ex. They seem to force more tiny particles out into your septic field and block it up! $$$$$$$$$...

Pumping out is far cheaper in the long run.

Well #$%!@#$ !!!!!!!! I've used Rid-Ex. Doh! I guess I need to have the thing pumped out. I've lived in the house 5 years and it hasn't been pumped yet. I guess it is time.

I have an appointment on Friday with Roto Rooter. They will be pumping my tank ($280 price quote). I described my problem to the dude and he asked "does it get particularly bad after a rain?" Why yes it does. So he said it sounds like it just needs to be pumped. The house and tank are only about 6 years old. So I would think that the tank should be ok unless something ruptured. Thanks for everyone's replies.

LJV wrote:I also have a septic tank set-up.

Start by having your septic tank pumped out. Make sure that they clean out the little screen filter at the entry point. A full tank can cause the symptoms you describe.

Yes. The liquid drains as normal, but septic tanks fill with sludge that does not drain into the drain field and it has to be removed every now and again.

Have this done every two years.

That depends on where you live, the condition of your drainfield, the size of your septic tank, the size of your family, and what you put down the drains. A big family with kids needs far more frequent pump-outs than a couple. We bought our house from a couple, and we are a couple. The previous couple had never pumped the septic tank out in the 22 years since the house was built. We had it pumped out "just because", to to make sure the system was not broken. (It was--we had to replace a distribution box lid.) It was not full. Once in 10-15 years is plenty often for us. But you have to pump it out twice before you know how often you have to pump it out.

Review what you and the wife CAN and CAN'T put down the toilet. It doesn't take much to foul the works up.

Yes. The ONLY product made by man (okay, there's just no way to say that) that should go in the toilet is toilet paper. Not Kleenex. Not paper towels. Not feminine products. Not cell phones. Not baby bottles. Not diapers. Not old socks. Not pages out of the Sears catalog.

My sister was buying a vacation lake house out in Mid-Michigan. Knowing she had never had a septic system, I warned her to verified it's condition.

She didn't.

It cost her over $8000 to fix the problem...

Assuming the problem was a flooded basement, the moisture of it being not the major problem. Our house has a 4" drain that goes right over my ham radio station, so every time my wife flushes, I hear it. That's a check. If I hear her flush and don't hear the resulting flow, time to raise the panic flag and shut off the water to prevent forgetting. It won't drain into the basement, though, because our basement drains are gray water only and go into a dry well. Point is: Know your system. Don't guess.

Finally, DO NOT put chemicals into your septic system. Chemicals strong enough to repair a major blockage will kill the bacteria and then your septic tank will go anaerobic. That is a Bad Thing. You have been warned. Your main drain will have a clean-out fitting somewhere--probably a 4" plastic screw-in plug poking up out of the yard, or an angle fitting in 4" black pipe in the basement with a plug in the straight end. Those are the cleanouts. Remove the cap, and clean out the block using mechanical means.

This is about 85% likely to be the septic tank needing to be pumped out. You are overfilling it and it is backing up into the house. You wait a while, and it drains down through the drain field. As soon as air appears downstream of the full toilet, it will flush itself and everything will work again, until your next big flow of waste into the tank. It might be a blockage, but the pump-out is the first step no matter what.

For the pump-out, they will come and dig a hole to expose the top of the tank (if there isn't a ground-level cover, which there usually isn't), remove the lid, and put a big hose down there to vacuum out the contents. Costs some hundreds of dollars, as you have discovered, but there's no avoiding it. That's what you pay instead of monthly sewage fees.

By the way, Joe, pumping your septic tank out onto the ground, even out in the country where you are, is likely to earn you a citation from the county health inspectors. You'll get a fine where you are. Here, it would probably be jail time. And it takes more than a couple of days for the smell to dissipate, too.

Rick "who has dealt with a septic overflow for one friend, and a cesspool that had lost its permeability in another life" Denney

Uncle Buck wrote: May be wrong, but . . .

*Remainder of my post deleted because subsequent posts proved the above phrase was the only thing I was right about.*

bloke wrote:

Rick Denney wrote:... a citation from the county health inspectors.

... got permission from the County's what-cha-call-it guy

Good, so anyone who might be inclined to try that procedure should start with that step.

The one most important rule I learned when I was about 20: NEVER EVER flush your cat´s litter down the drain!!!!!

back then, I was living with my parents in our 8-appartment-house dating from about 1900. (us being the landlords of said house)
There was one family keeping cats as pets. These stupid people chose to flush kitty litter down the toilet rather than dispose of it via the garbage system.
When the drain system failed, I got the job to dig out the main drain line in our basement, so a plumbing company could take care of the business. I dug out the drain line, and what did we find: the whole drain had been filled up to 1/2 by kitty litter. (NOT the actual poop, just the white, flaky stuff that´s supposed to ban the odor).
I had major fun, being taller than the height of our basement, digging a trench to get to that drain line.
Back then I was too shy, but today I´d kick these cat owners´butts so the´ll remember !!!

bloke wrote:bloke "who suggests that one might keep their geniusizing to stuff with which they have had direct experience"

If you had permission, you had permission. That doesn't make what I said in any way untrue.

And what makes you think I don't have direct experience? I have lived with and worked on septic systems longer than you, my friend. Maybe you don't have a sense of smell. I can dump 10 gallons of two-day-old waste from my motorhome in the woods and smell it for a week. And we have a strict no-poop-on-the-bus rule. Maybe your 300 feet of hose would go to the next guy's property for most folks. Maybe before giving advice, you should tell the whole story.

Rick "who has actually been INSIDE a cesspool while being cleaned--have you?" Denney

bloke wrote:If you're organizing a contest, I've have a output hose back up through the primer - right in my face.

Yikes. This thread is reminding me of this SNL skit.

http://www.casttv.com/video/lzdim1/snl- ... zled-video

bloke wrote:

Rick Denney wrote:Rick "who has actually been INSIDE a cesspool...--have you?" Denney

yup I believe I have.

If you're organizing a contest, I've have a output hose back up through the primer - right in my face.

Heh, heh. Me, too. I remember trying to prime a displacement pump we were using to empty the cesspool (prior to entering it) and it had a priming chamber above the pump housing. The idea was to fill that with water to maintain the airlock. Didn't work. Had to put my hand over the chamber to seal it when the pump was just starting to prime and the chamber had emptied out. When it was primed, I removed my hand--a little prematurely as it turned out. Brown fountain on high, with me under it. We pumped that cesspool out onto the ground, where it drained down a mountainside causing a stink for about a mile, and attracting the attention of the people who then came and wrote the property owner (whose instructions we were obeying) a big fat citation. We called that little drainage path Reek Creek, of course. That was about 35 years ago, in Colorado, so I didn't figure things had gotten any better for people who dump raw sewage. Your case was a special case.

We had tried to break down the sludge in the cesspool using a product that "makes water wetter". Didn't work, of course. But it made the cesspool even harder to clean.

The problem was that the cesspool was made for a building that was original built for apartments, but had been converted to a dining hall. All that fat from the kitchen (they didn't have good grease traps) had made the walls of the cesspool impermeable. We went in there and scraped it down, and then water blasted it to wash out the fouled dirt from the openings in the bricks. It worked...acceptably after that for a little while--long enough for us to finish (hand) digging a new drainfield.

Which reminds me--that's another thing to NEVER put down the drain into a septic system: Cooking grease.

Rick "too stupid in those days to know when not to volunteer" Denney

If you own a boat, only you have the pleasure of maintaining the marine head. Ricks no-poop rule would help. But at sea, one must deal with reality.
I installed a sign above the thundermug that reads, "Please put nothing in the toilet that you haven't previously eaten."
toots

Roto Rooter just left. Everyone who said "Have the tank pumped" was right on the money. When the dude removed the lid it was bubbling with liquid and toilet paper at the top. We had a blockage of TP the size of 1/2 loaf of bread that clogged the line. I'm ashamed to admit it, but our tank was one of the worst he has seen. I will definitely be purchasing different/thinner TP for the future.

Was that T.M.I.???

TubaTodd wrote:We had a blockage of TP the size of 1/2 loaf of bread that clogged the line. I'm ashamed to admit it, but our tank was one of the worst he has seen. I will definitely be purchasing different/thinner TP for the future.

I need TP for my bunghole!

Todd,

For maintenance we use Scott brand tissue and run a bottle of liquid Rid-X through the tank about every 2 weeks. That should help. In addition, be careful to consider what products you use in the house that get flushed down the drain. Paint supplies, bleach, etc could impact the digesting bacteria. Always think of the tank of what it actually is - a living thing. IT'S ALIVEEEE!!