davethelibrarian
New Member
Hiya! I'm new to the forum and have a jetting question. We (my family) have a persistent grease clog somewhere between our kitchen sink (main floor) and the floor drain in our basement. When it gets blocked (usually in the colder weather), the nasty water backs up into a sink in the basement that runs into the same line. We need some advice with troubleshooting hydro-jetting through either the floor drain or the basement sink. Note that I'm an amateur -- a homeowner just trying to DIY -- so I may not get all the terminology right -- sorry if this is confusing as a result!
More detail:
The line would get clogged up pretty regularly (1-3x in the fall and winter) in spite of the fact that we dump all our dishwater outside all year around. We used to use other messy, labour-intensive methods to get it cleared, which worked fine before we became parents (recently). But these are no longer viable, and now that we're parents, we're finding it's getting clogged more frequently. We had it snaked professionally a few times, and jetted professionally once, and this always worked (especially the jetting), but we can't afford to have this done at the frequency needed, so we bought a hydro jetting (a 25' cloghog) hose attachment for our pressure washer.
We tried to feed the jetting hose into the floor drain (which we think would have been the "downstream" option to get at the block), then through the pipe underneath the basement sink with the trap removed (which would be the upstream option), but in both cases, the hose wouldn't go in more than a foot and seemed to get stuck at a bend or joint, and wouldn't be pulled forward by the water jets. We tried coiling and turning the hose a little when inserting to see if it would go around the stuck point, but no luck. We have a small drum auger that does manage to make it around the stuck point underneath the basement sink, though it hasn't been super effective at clearing the clog.
The basement was finished (and it seems poorly so) by a previous homeowner, so all the pipes are behind walls or underneath floor tiles, and we're not in a position to start breaking up the place to expose the pipes, so we're not sure what we're dealing with.
Questions:
Are we using improper technique -- as in, is there some trick to this that we're missing?
Is it possible for DIYers to jet through a floor drain? Or does the design of the drain not typically allow for that kind of thing? (I was looking at diagrams of them and they seem like they might be full of bends!)
Is this something that can even be done? Or are we basically attempting something silly that we shouldn't be?
Anyone have experience with this kind of stuff? Any advice would be appreciated! And apologies again if the above is unclear -- happy to clarify.
Thanks in advance.
More detail:
The line would get clogged up pretty regularly (1-3x in the fall and winter) in spite of the fact that we dump all our dishwater outside all year around. We used to use other messy, labour-intensive methods to get it cleared, which worked fine before we became parents (recently). But these are no longer viable, and now that we're parents, we're finding it's getting clogged more frequently. We had it snaked professionally a few times, and jetted professionally once, and this always worked (especially the jetting), but we can't afford to have this done at the frequency needed, so we bought a hydro jetting (a 25' cloghog) hose attachment for our pressure washer.
We tried to feed the jetting hose into the floor drain (which we think would have been the "downstream" option to get at the block), then through the pipe underneath the basement sink with the trap removed (which would be the upstream option), but in both cases, the hose wouldn't go in more than a foot and seemed to get stuck at a bend or joint, and wouldn't be pulled forward by the water jets. We tried coiling and turning the hose a little when inserting to see if it would go around the stuck point, but no luck. We have a small drum auger that does manage to make it around the stuck point underneath the basement sink, though it hasn't been super effective at clearing the clog.
The basement was finished (and it seems poorly so) by a previous homeowner, so all the pipes are behind walls or underneath floor tiles, and we're not in a position to start breaking up the place to expose the pipes, so we're not sure what we're dealing with.
Questions:
Are we using improper technique -- as in, is there some trick to this that we're missing?
Is it possible for DIYers to jet through a floor drain? Or does the design of the drain not typically allow for that kind of thing? (I was looking at diagrams of them and they seem like they might be full of bends!)
Is this something that can even be done? Or are we basically attempting something silly that we shouldn't be?
Anyone have experience with this kind of stuff? Any advice would be appreciated! And apologies again if the above is unclear -- happy to clarify.
Thanks in advance.
