Can I DIY water backwashing through my basement drain?
Can I DIY water backwashing through my basement drain?
Essentially any large flush through my house (washer, shower) has started coming up through my basement drain in the floor. I bought this house two years ago for full price and already am 20k deep in hidden repairs (all from basement flooding, yayy). I can explain if I need to, but I really just don't have extra funds to put to this after the others. I'm thinking I can't bathe with more than a gallon of water and not wash dishes or clothing until I can fix it.
Edit: Thank you for all the comments. I'll hire a plumber.
You need your drain line scoped for obstructions. You could possibly diy it to a certain length but it may not be enough.
I know you're right. I just really didn't want this to be the case after having to spend 20+k in two years of owning this hous
Can always rent an electric 3/4" snake from a box store for under $50 I think. Make sure you're close to the feed point or you'll be wrestling with sewage-soaked coil. I'd go from the floor drain that is backing up if you don't have a toilet you can pull right next to it. Goal is to feed it to the sewer main. Scoping is the right answer, but a powered snake rental and an hour of dirty work has a chance of giving you some breathing room.
You could have a plumber come out and clean the line and locate the issue for probably a reasonable price. Once the issue is located, you could dig the pipe out yourself and then have a plumber repair or replace it to save money.
I watch a YouTube channel called Drain Addict and this dude uses a pressure washer with special heads on it to clean out drains and cut away roots. He then uses an inspection camera with a locating beacon to identify where the line is buried, where the break is at, and how deep.
I'd at least get a plumber to check it out. You could snake it yourself probably but you could also make it worse. If the pipe's broken, you might as well just get more debris falling into it and clogging it further.
A regular plumber visit/check usually isn't that expensive. Not cheap but far from 20k expensive.
It could also be connected to your flooding too, so you probably actually want to at least evaluate the damage ASAP. If the pipe's broken, you just have a convenient pipe to drain all the rain water straight to your basement.
You have my sympathy on the basement flooding issues. Been there. Thankfully not sewage backup in my case.
it's definitely not an issue you want to let go for long. If there's an obstruction, it will get worse quickly as more solids go down the drain. Easiest way is to just hire a plumber. Complexity and cost are going to depend heavily on the cause and location of the obstruction.
If you want to try to DIY it, you could try to snake the drain but on a 3 or 4" line you'd need a good sized power auger to make any serious headway.
If it were me, I would get a sewer inspection camera. Low end ones start at less than $150. This is really the only way you're going to find out what the root issue (no pun intended) is outside of paying a plumber to come do the same thing. A large wet dry vac also comes in really handy in these situations.
How old is your home and what's the sewer line made of?
So this is likely one of two things: a clog in the line or the sewer line between your house and the service is broken. You didn’t say how old the house was, but the older it is, the higher the chance the line is actually broken (especially if you have any drainage issues near the foundation or foundation settling issues). No matter what you’ll likely need to figure out what the issue is first by having it scoped and then figure out your next steps. Hopefully it’s just a clog!
Source: had a broken line in a fifty year old house. It was awful and definitely not cheap.
It might be a few hundred to scope the main sewer line but you could probably find promos to lower the cost. There's a "one stop shop" in my area that's advertising scopes for $30, but they do plumbing, electrical, and HVAC and I haven't heard of them doing any of those particularly well. If you find a company like that just be ready to put up with their sales pitch and then keep the video to run it by a different plumber for a dimebag or a case of beer or maybe even some real money.
Do you have many big trees on the property? That's usually the biggest cause for backups like what you're describing: roots sneak into the sewer line, then keep growing/expanding and catching all the toilet paper flowing by and then just turns into this big dumb obstruction that constipates the whole line
Unfortunately I'm very rural,so I can't shop around. I live in a city, but it's a joke to call it that. A competing service would come from two hours drive away, to put it in perspective.
The only tree is not really in a position to cause the issue, and it's also the wrong type. It's at least 70 years old and a conifer, but I'll check when I find a plumber anyway thank you
If it comes up the basement drain, then the obstruction is further down, and so you can't really flush it from the drain and out. You need to find the sewer service well further out and flush it from there and in.
It's likely a broken pipe taking in sand or branches, so flushing it won't be a permanent fix. A plumber can probably fix it from outside too, so it doesn't have to be very expensive.
You don't need to waste your money on snakes and that kind of stuff. If a regular hose on full blast can't loosen the obstruction from outside, then you need a plumber anyway.
DIY what, exactly?
Mostly I was worried about trying to roto the line myself. I got nothing from routing the line from the upstairs
Might be worth a look yourself:
Anykit USB Endoscope Camera with 8 Adjustable LED Lights, Borescope with Semi-Rigid Snake Camera, IP67 Waterproof USB Inspection Camera for Phone & Tablet (33ft) https://a.co/d/aiNASM6
This probably won't be useful as OP won't be able to see anything in a pipe full of water/sewage and will need to clean the clog or obstruction out first in order to drain it.
Can you put a sump pump in?
I have a sump outside, but tbh I don't know what a sump would do from where it's leaking. Like, I can hear the water drain through the pipes and bubble up through this drain. I would assume a sump pump would drain into this pipe in the first place?
Idk. I'm a southerner, the whole idea of a basement is weird to me lol
Most sump pumps, at least in my area, drain directly to the outside, there's basically a pipe that goes from my sump up and out of my basement and opens out into my yard.
I wouldn't really want to count on a sump pump for this kind of issue though. At best you're basically just putting a bandaid on a sucking chest wound. You could also run into some legal issues for knowingly using it to discharge sewage into your yard (and why would you even want to do that in the first place?)
It would also be pretty rough on the pump, they're usually not meant to handle solids like the hair clogs, bits of food, fecal matter, etc.
Assuming you'd have an actual sump pit installed, there's often some water left standing in the pit, you probably don't want that to be sewage water.