HELP! Plumbing problem that should be simple
 

We're in a new house with septic. The drains have been working great until yesterday. We had a small wedding here in mid-March, and have had 6-15 adults in the house at a time with no issues. All of the plumbing is in one end, almost a corner of the house, and it drains to a septic system. All of the plumbing is sched 40, and probably max 30 yrs old, maybe newer.

Upstairs bathroom sink and toilet, downstairs bathroom, sink, shower, tub, toilet and kitchen sink. They all clog (well, all of the downstairs stuff, I haven't run enough to clog the upstairs, and I'm not going to try) which makes me think it's in the run to the septic or the septic itself.

Bathroom sink meets shower drain ~1'. That shower that's ~6-7' from a tub. The drain from the shower connects to the drain for the tub in a T, and shortly there after, it takes a right turn, and ~7' over, the downstairs toilet joins the fun which then runs into a 90º elbow down to the main line. The upstairs toilet and sink then join the party, maybe 3' back from the downstairs toilet on the main line. The whole shebang then hits the main pipe to the septic tank. From the opposite side, the kitchen sink hits the main line to the septic at about the same spot as the other drain. The septic tank is ~13' from the wall of the house, so the distance to where all of the drains hit the pipe is probably max 15' from the septic tank. I've got a 25', ¼" snake. I have run the snake out to it's max 2 or 3 times. I don't think I run into what seems like any major obstructions. I just pulled the lid off of the first tank and saw that at least 1' of the snake was protruding from the end of the PVC in the septic tank which was several inches above the top of the "water" in the tank. I was able to grab the end of the snake, and with my wife inside, we were able to easily pull the snake back and forth by at least 1' in a sawing motion.

So if I can get the snake through, and the end of the pipe in the septic system just has a trickle of clear water running into the septic tank, WTF?

top of photo, drain from bathroom sink right to left to shower, left edge of photo, J trap at shower. Back ground shows the drain from the tub where the toilet meets it going left to right, and on the very right edge, you can just see the 90º elbow down to the main line.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620164453.JPG

This shows where the upstairs bathroom meets the main line to the septic, and then the downstairs bathroom line has the 90º elbow down to the line from the left, and from the right in the background you can see the smaller pipe coming from the kitchen sink which looks like it might be a little low.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620164453.JPG

The septic line runs from under the house, probably under the AC unit.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620164453.jpg

I didn't take a pic of the main line in the septic tank when I had the lid off. But this is a reasonable facsimile of what it looked like. It's a PVC pipe out of the top side of the tank, in our case, several inches above the stuff in the tank. The top of the tank closest to the house is a mass of stuff that's full of drain fly larva.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620164453.jpg

Rough approximation
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620166006.jpg


Thoughts or suggestions?

Have you had the septic tank pumped out in the past three years?
Your field may be clogged which would reduce the ability of your system to get rid of the higher volume of effluent.
You may need to rebuild or extend the field.
Best
Les

vent pipe clear? air behind water ........

No, but since the inlet coming into the tank is hanging in mid air inches above the effluent, would that be the current issue? If water won't drain out of the downstairs toilets and sinks, but the end of the pipe in the tank is hanging in mid air, and we even tried flushing when the lid was off, but nothing came out but a trickle.

I wish I had something larger that I could run up the main pipe from the septic side to see if I ran into anything, but I wouldn't want to push anything farther up the pipes either.

Hmm, there has been a glugging sound. I guess I need to find the vent pipe.

Presumably that's the vent up towards the right?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620166814.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620166651.JPG

Is the sinks which won't drain upstream of the toilet?
Could be a mass (or mess) between the toilet and the line going to the septic tank.
It might be easiest to pop the toilet off and see if you can clear the blockage from there.
Best
Les

So where are you running your snake from. I see a cleanout in one of the photos where the arrow is. If that line is clear, then maybe the blockage is in the line with the X.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620167305.jpg

I'm guessing your leach field has back filled the tank and line. Its been pretty wet lately. I have had over 6 inches of rain in the past several days, you can't be too far off that total.

You can tap the pipes to see if they sound solid or hollow, to find out where the blockage is.

That tank you pictured needs a baffle. There should be baffles at the inlet and outlet of the tank.

Everything that's red is clogged (and flushing an upstairs toilet caused backup into the tub yesterday). And I've run the snake the path of the blue line, so it's gone from the downstairs toilet to the septic tank. I've actually seen the snake in the septic tank.

Yes, it was very rainy and wet. But I'd assume that if the tank isn't full over the top of the inlet pipe, that I should still have water draining into the tank, right?
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620168785.jpg

^^^ This.
I noticed the same thing. Mine broke off once and I had problems.

Yes, I'd noticed the baffle thing when searching for that photo online. Mine does NOT have a baffle. It's just a pipe hanging out of the side of the top of the tank. But, in this case, the pipe is several inches above the effluent, so I would assume the baffle would not be impacting this issue.

I really don't want to crawl all of the way under the house to the pipes, but I may have to.

I ran 25' of snake down the vent and then pulled it back out. When I came back in everything looked drained, but when I ran the water, some of the sinks made glugging noises, and eventually, the kitchen sink backed up a little. It's draining, but slowly.

Shouldn't there be a cap on the vent on the roof? It's just wide open to the sky which doesn't seem like a great idea to me.

"Shouldn't there be a cap on the vent on the roof?"
No, what little rain that falls into the opening will not be a problem. Your septic system should handle it. Sounds like there is a restriction of some sort in the big pipe flowing to the tank. The snake makes it past it but lots of water backs up and only allows a trickle. Remove that big cleanout plug under the house and run a rotating rooter straight through to the tank. You can get these at Lowes or Home Depot. Gona have to get down and dirty in the crawl space.

Or you can run it up from the septic tank.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620170477.jpg

How long was the house empty?

When we moved in to our place it was empty for a year. They had all PVC work done a decade earlier, nice job. BUT...the last people who used the toilets (probably the painting crew) ended up leaving...stuff...about 40 feet down the main drain trunk. It flushed that far then started to solidify, then turned to cement sitting in the heat for a year. 4 months of us living there had no problem, but it took 4 months for that small solid mass to accumulate stuff, until it completely clogged. We need someone with a long powered snake to fix it. Once we got that cleared, never had a problem since because the line gets flushed regularly. If you don't add showers and sink usage, then the last dude's poop remains forever.

OK, I was thinking that leaves or insects/animals could cause issues, but it seemed pretty clean/clear from up on the roof looking down.

OK, so the theory is that the 1/4" snake is screwing it's way through but not doing the trick.

I guess what you're saying I need is something like one of these?
https://www.plumbingsupply.com/image...d-kit-srcs.jpg

I've got one of those, 25' long, basically the same thing, except that the one that I have can be chucked into a drill (which I've done).

I don't think it's been empty. The wife of the PO was out here 3-4 days a week. She kept her horses on the property and brought her dogs. There are doggy scratch marks on some of the doors and the house was being used pretty much right up until closing.

If nothing is going into the tank, you have a blockage. Snake, Camera, or hire a pro. That's a job I won't DIY.

Baffle at the inlet forces the solids down. Baffle at the outlet keeps solids out of the field. That will cause very expensive damage.

Newer systems also have a filter at the exit, which is a good idea to retrofit.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/production...nk-600x443.jpg

I believe Pazuzu identified your problem. I had a similar problem with our cabin down at the lake. Turned out to be the line to the septic tank was full of thin roots. Like a root ball. All it would do would let it trickle of water go through. And of course the more solids that went down the line, the more things got clogged up.

If I didn’t run any water for 24 hours I could get two or three flushes or one shower before things plugged up again.

I went to Home Depot and got a professional grade drain auger with both a 2 inch and a 3 inch cutting blade. Watch a couple of YouTube videos before you do it yourself. At least for me, that solve my problem.

Here is the one I got. You can rent one, but if you have roots in there now, you’ll have roots in there a couple of years from now.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620172213.png

1st pic - small pipe has plenty of pitch. No hangers on the second one, could it have dropped and is now flat or backpitched?

2nd pic - The cap on the end is a cleanout cap. You can unscrew it, run water and see if it is flowing, and snake it from there if the clog is after the cleanout. I don't like the rubber fernco repair above, again, perhaps the pipe sitting on dirt has settled and no longer has enough pitch.

I did once pull the snake out and found the last inch was full of what seemed to be super fine roots. I was afraid that the issue was due to the small snake not really cleaning them out enough, and with spring coming on, maybe more have grown.

Thanks for the info.

I'll do a lot, but sometimes, it's better to get someone else to do things.

I don't have anything but the small snake so even if I crawled under there now, I'm not sure what I'd be able to do.

I've got something like 10' of 1.25" sched 40 and then maybe some 1.75 or 2" (the other fits pretty tightly inside. I've wondered about cutting a reverse V in the end (like a pacman mouth) and then putting a bolt through the two and using them as a sharp ram rod to clean out temporarily.

Well, you did say you don't mind snakes. Lol, just had to Steve.

Roflmao!

I'd hire a plumber, if he makes the poo go away I write the check.

I’m no plumber, but shouldn’t those 90*’s be wyes?

Also, what size pipe is the large drain...3 or 4”? How many gallons are your toilets? With low flow toilets, the 3” pipe works better, as it helps push the turd down line. New toilets with a four-inch pipe, don’t have enough water behind it, to push the turd down.

OK, I bit the bullet. I really didn't want to crawl under the house. It had some seriously black, sticky mud/dirt. It was probably only 8-12 feet from the entrance. I did what I said, telescoping PVC, hole drilled through both with a bent nail through. The bigger pipe's end was cut in a V (like a mouth, not a spear). When I pulled the cap, a little bit of toilet paper and water came out but not much, a cup or two. Then I rammed the ram home. It went most of the way in and then jammed. I gave it a few good whacks and it went the rest of the way through. I screwed the cap on and came inside. I've run the sinks (no more glugging noise in drains) and flushed the toilet several times. Things seem to be working again.

It felt like a hard obstruction, not a soft one like I imagined roots would have felt. I left the ram down there. It was a pain in the ass to weave through all of the piers, and I was just ready to back my ass up outta there.

I think there was 15-18' of pipe from the clean out to the septic. I think I had 13-15' of PVC as a ram rod. I ran the ram rod to the hilt into the clean-out. I figure if that didn't work, I would always pull the lid off of the septic again and go in from the other end. Fortunately, I didn't need to do that.

Hell, it's entirely possible that the 2 year old flushed a hot wheels down the toilet. I'm not going to go dredging the septic to find out what it was.

I will look into getting a baffle installed.

It was a big pipe, not sure what size. I really don't want to go back down to find out. Yes, 3 or 4".

Good info though, and I can see what you mean.

Speaking of working plumbing, it's time to hit the showers for Capt Turd!

Use this for some furious 2 handed cranking action.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620182070.jpg

Works great and a lifetime warranty.

I had one of those once. Horrible! I can't believe they're asking $27. I paid $25-30 for the one that I have.

2 hands is better than one when it comes to stirring the crap, get some arm action into, both arms ....

but if that didn't work, you do need the power rotorooter. I assume you are plumbing thru the right access port.

If the house was a women, she'd have been in a porn yesterday. I think I ran my snake through just about every orifice possible.

Problem resolved. I ended up running 2" PVC from the clean-out toward the septic tank. I felt an obstruction and rammed through it. I have no idea what it was. The toilets have been flushed many times, showers, sinks run, no issues. I left the ram rod under the house in case I've got to do this again.

From what little I can see from your piping pictures, it appears EVERY one of your elbows is the wrong type. You have standard sweep elbows or Ys. Anytime you discharge into a horizontal all the sweeps must be long sweep.

I don't know code, and I don't know plumbing dos/don'ts, but I will admit that when I crawled under the house, I found myself thinking "that just doesn't look right to me."

The fitting circled in green is questionable, but I would probably let it slide if all else was ok. The two in red are just wrong and will cause blockage every Wednesday after taco Tuesday.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1620230008.jpg

Also appears you have an uninsulated hot water line down there.
The smaller yellowish pipe looks like cpvc, versus the white pvc line.
Maybe not a big deal in TX, but here in TN I would definitely want insulation on all exterior pipes, especially HW.

Thanks, I understand. I assume you're saying that the 1 green circled should be a much greater angle, but is not too bad. And the red circled is bad, presumably something like what this image is saying.
https://coveredbridgeprofessionalhom.../02/1633.0.jpg
Yes, during the big freeze back in Feb or Mar, we got lucky and didn't have anything freeze. I'd done some things to try to prevent freezing and got very lucky that they worked. But yes, I need to get under and probably, I assume insulate all of the pipes down there.

I don't think we're too worried about the hot getting cold, but I think we'd be best served if all of the lines were insulated, so we don't lose heat on the hot lines and we aren't in danger of any of the lines freezing in case there's another freak freeze event.