A small update from a few days ago. To save you a click, it turns out that if you apply PVC cement and don’t push the pipes together you won’t actually make a good joint. Who knew.
I’m honestly impressed it lasted so long without issues. We’ve lived in this house over 10 years and the PVC run predates our purchase.
As a side note, PVC repair couplers are a massive PITA. I am glad I didn’t have to dig a fresh trench, get the old pipe out, and put a new one in, but it was quite the dance getting the coupler on while fighting with 2" OD pipe that’s firmly lodged in clay. My nice small hole grew a bit longer to get some wiggle room.
We bought a house that had the kitchen drain pipes like that.
Previous owner poured tons of chicken fat and bacon grease down the sink. The 1 1/2 pipe was down to a 1/2 hole. The fat seemed to have trapped every fiber that came down the pipe so the texture looked like your picture.
I though, meh, easy fix I’ll replace the pipe. But then noticed the galvanized pipe went behind a block wall and was resting on an electrical cable. So I had to pull it all out.
Then noticed (while opening the wall) that it had no insulation in the cavity. So I tore it all down to the studs and started over.
Clogged pipe became a $5000 kitchen reno.
But in the end we had new wiring, new plumbing, double sink, new cupboards, new counter top, and the closed in kitchen wall was opened up to make a breakfast bar with a supporting beam across the ceiling.
Looking back $5000 is cheap, today that would be a $20-30k reno if pros came in.
We’ve lived here 12 years now. Before us, the original owner lived here for 45 years. The house was builder grade, and nearly all original, when we moved in. Thankfully we had very few actual surprises until this year, but I did find evidence that the original cast iron drain pipe for the kitchen sink had rotted out and was replaced before I took the kitchen down to studs for a planned reno.
All in I think our kitchen was around $20k and that was with me doing all the work other than installing the counters :( I also pulled down a wall, but thankfully didn’t need to put in a beam.
We had a minor surprise around 5 years ago: a galvanized pipe that was screwed into the cast iron stack rotted out. I replaced that section with PVC.
This year we had our first real surprise: the cast iron pipes in our basement floor had rotted out pretty badly. That was… not fun to deal with. Break up the slab, find asbestos floor tiles, get 12 years worth of stuff out of the basement to deal with cleanup, etc.
so my wife and i send each other similar gifs after really satisfying poops. i thought you might appreciate it tho
I loled. The flow has been restored!
My nice small hole grew a bit longer to get some wiggle room.
We’ve all been there.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )
Pinkies out…
Oh yes please
Pro tip (literally, I run PVC underground often): if the pipe is empty you can use an expansion coupling instead of the repair kit. Muuuuch cheaper and super easy.
Only buy a repair kit if theres wire inside that you can’t pull back far enough.
This was pretty cheap TBH. I cut out the old joint, spliced in about 8" of new pipe with a traditional coupler on one side, and then used a repair coupling on the other side.
I had somewhat mixed feelings about burying anything that can slide. It’s probably in my head, but I didn’t want to give the roots another opportunity.
If you glue both ends of the expansion joint its not going anywhere lol
Depending on pipe size those kits can be $70+, a slip joint is $20.
That’s fair, I was more worried about the slipping portion that a root might be able to get in through.
All in this was less than $10 excluding the glue. Just a section of 1.5" pipe, a normal coupler, and a coupler that lacks the center stop.
Ohhhh I got you. I thought you bought one of these lol
That looks pretty intense, haha. Nope, nothing like that here. The repaired area looks like some dingus decided to use a tiny section of pipe for some reason, but looks normal otherwise.
I’ve never had the pleasure beyond a simple snake, but when I studied for my wastewater collections licences we had to memorize the names of the tools. Here is an assortment for laterals:
There is so much behind that seems like such a simple task. Very cool pictures, thanks for sharing!
There is no end to the problems I’ve solved in old plumbing just using a double bar corkscrew snake and an adjustable foot jack…
Goddamn Bruce, that’s chokkas.
My dad is having to deal with something similar in his garden. He had to remove two bushes just to get to the sprinkler pipes that broke. He’s been digging for days.
That stinks. I was able to find this within about 6" on the first dig. It’s about 10 feel from the outlet, so I could use the snake as a depth gauge.
Hope your dad is able to get to the bottom of it soon!
He’ll probably have it fixed soon enough.
