So had a plumbing issue, which became nearly catastrophic for how simple of an issue it was, that I ended up spending nearly this entire week trying to resolve it. After a lot of trial and error I decided I would write up a needlessly long post for the possible 2 redditors that might have the time to give it a read… but more importantly… for me to just release the frustration somewhere of what has been the last 5 days and nights of attempts...and the final Joy of success!
Essentially, I large item was stuck in my drain, and no one could figure out how to get it out… well, at least cost effectively.
With that said, here is the problem and then a DIY step by step of what I tired to resolve it…. Yes, Its long winded and almost certainly not going to be helpful for most people.
The problem arose at my house that the waste out (sewage) was getting clogged up and causing our basement shower drain (low point of the house) to flood. After attempting numerous tries getting it unclogged (including snaking for 30+ feet) and finding nothing stuck, I realized it must be an issue outside of the house. I opened the sewer cleanout pipe (the 3”to 4” dia access pipe that meets the connection of your homes waste to city or public waste) and noticed it was full. That access should be empty if there is no issue or clog.
Called the county and had them come out and check it. It was nighttime, so it was just snaked and cleared, and they informed me they would come back later to see what caused the blockage. The following day I got a letter in my mailbox of the issue and was informed that after they viewed it with the borescope (snake cam) it was determined that it was an issue that needed to be resolved on my end. This is the image I got, apparently there was a "thin metal rod" inside of my drain out, and sadly (and conveniently for the county) on Homeowner’s responsibility, not county’s.
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Now, no one has opened that on my end, and I don’t think kids are going to find a square head ¾ wrench and open it… so more then likely something fell down when it was being accessed by the county previously and just left there. Regardless, it is there now… and likewise… now my responsibility.
What you cannot see from that image is how far down it is. The connection from my house to the clean out is 10 feet down, the distance from that to the pipe that was stuck inside was another 10 feet down. So, 20 feet (6+ meters) total down a 3”1/2 pipe that change degrees ever so slightly at the y fittings.
Well, I have never opened it before at this house and had not seen it myself, so the first thing I did was grab a borescope and go check it out and make sure it really was there. Sure enough, there was a rod of some kind about 1” in diameter and 4 or 5 feet long. Since it appears to have been in there for some time, it quite frankly looked like a long slimy slug turd. Yes, it was gross.
I spoke with wife and asked what she wanted to try, she said “just call the plumber”. Now, I have no problem calling a plumber to help me on something, but I was more curious about what he would do that I couldn’t do…. Besides just dig up and replace the whole line. So, I agreed I would call a plumber but before I got hit with that bill, I should at least try to get it out myself. My thought, almost no plumbing happens in our area for less than 300 bucks so if I can get it out at half that I’m good. Any more then that, and it probably isn’t worth my time and will pay to have it professionally done.
I came up with a list of things I wanted to try:
- 1.Drano it clean (as there was still a lot of build up being blocked by it)
- 2.Snake the line hard and make sure everything was out of the way, and also potentially get the line stuck around the rod enough to pull it out.
- 3.Lower a magnet on it and try to grab it.
- 4.Lower a hook down and try to grab it.
- 5.Extend a retrieving tool (The claw type) to grab something down there
- 6.Lower some devise down and try to clamp on it.
- 7.Fit a looped rope end (slip not) to the end of a pole and try to lasso it.
- 8.Zip tie it with a sting pull back.
- 9.And.. call three different plumbers to get quotes while I attempt all this.
With the rough plan in place, I put the calls into the plumbers and hit Home Depot. Got 4 different types of drain cleaners, 30 feet of ¾ pvc pipe with couplers, more gorilla tape, multiple magnets, j hooks, and some different clamps. About $150ish total. (Already have a good snake cam, and other parts as well as all the tools I needed).
Go back to the house and check the line with the snake cam to see what the current status was, and also just take note of the fitting conditions and what not, to make sure I was not doing anything negatively impacting my plumbing. Then I ran drain cleaners and snake.
I decided the magnet was the easiest option to try so connected the (3) 10’foot long pipes then connected a 65lb pull strength 2” dia magnet to an end fitting, then connected the camera directly adjacent to the magnet.
Ran it down and immediately it was clear… not magnetic. So it was either aluminum or wood…. Which would make sense for some kind of tool handle. Let some more cleaners down and let them sit for about an hour then ran the snake camera.
Yep, It’s a wood pole. Looks like a pole that goes into a basic old rake head or broom. I guess someone was servicing this sometime back and dropped it down the hole and just left it.
The issue was the visible end did not have a screw off part (like newer brooms) and there was nothing to grab onto as the bottom was shoved into the Y fitting and could not be accessed. Got my 30 foot tube back and swapped ends to hooks and tired multiple times with no success.
Then the first plumber arrived. Told him what the issue was, and he said to call the county and that that would require excavation and at that depth was not something they do. Thanked him for his time and went back to trying to get it with rope (lasso) and Zip ties.
The issue with this method is because of the bend between pipes, having the rope or zip ties set in a nice open loop, by that time you finagled it down there, the loop was either off, or no longer and open circle. After about 20 more attempts, finally got it but the rod was way to slippery, and it could not actually grab it. Second Plumber arrived, also said that the only thing that can be done at this point was pull the entire line out and replaced it. Asked for a ball bark and was told probably 10k.
Third plumber called back and said pretty much the same as the others. He said that anything over the 8 foot depth becomes an excavation if it can’t be obtained with what I tired, and the clamping claws don’t have enough force to pick up an item that large that is wedged in there. I asked about pricing and he also said pretty much the same thing. Apparently at a 20 foot depth it’s a full excavation team with rigging and permits pulled.
So that little stick was going to cost me 10k if I couldn’t get it out. I asked him to see what he could do about pricing and work up a quote as it may be what I have to do.
Then updated the wife, and, after hearing that price.. she too started throwing out ideas.
Went back to trying some more, and added a few more options. Initial one that came to mind was to Mix 5 pounds of Styrofoam with 5 gallons of gas pour it down the drain, wait about 2 minutes or so and then drop a match. That would be sure to get rid of that stick. This however was not tested. Back on the practical side, decide we could try to cork screw it, put a cork screw on the end of the pole and try to jamb it in the end and turn it into the corkscrew to lock it.
Corkscrew was a failure however, due to the kink in the pipes, as soon as you rotated your corkscrew came off the end. After about 20 or so attempts, we moved on to another option. Went back to zip ties and lasso with multiple ones being able to be pulled at once, though it has the strength, it was impossible to get it on… well maybe not impossible… but it was like 30 degrees, 130am in the morning and my cold bloody hands decided it was time to quit for the night. After soaking my hands and esophagus with alcohol, I laid in bed and pondered what I could try.
Then it hit me. I needed a large tube full of nails in all directions pointing back inside of itself connected back to m 30 foot pole that I could jamb down there on top of the pole, and it would go in but could not back out. I went to bed happy that I had thought of what would actually work. The next morning, we get up and my wife tells me she has an idea for what would work too. I say something along the lines of “There is no way it’s going to be better than my hellraiser idea” She goes on to say, “You know those antirape devices for women that have like spikes inside?” And I scream out “No way did you think of the same thing as me” So after a good chuckle we agreed the “Hellraiser Fleshlight” was the thing that would work.
The issue was, after all the work the night before my camera was broken and needed to be replaced. Luckily had a warranty and got the camera returned and the new one would ship to me the following day (which was yesterday).
The third plumber called back and said he thought he could get the price down a bit more but wanted to see what he could do and check into it deeper. Guy was super nice, came right over and ran a snake down and saw the issue. After some thinking we was able to determine he really only needed to go down about 14 feet and then he could fish out the pole by hand with standard equipment the other 6 feet down. Got the price down to the 6K range including permits but didn’t have an opening for the work until today (Tuesday) So I told him I would try to get it out myself. If, however I could not get it out, we would pull the trigger for the Tuesday work.
So at least this Sunday I had this quote if we couldn't fix it:
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Later that day (Yesterday) after work, the “Hellraiser Fleshlight” plan went into full force. Bought 2”pipe, attachment fittings to bring it down to 3/4” then more gorilla tape, and a lot of 8 ga screws and a refill on trim nails.
Got Everything put together, Hooked the new camera up and an additional pencil flashlight on the pole shaft for added clarity.
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Went with the trim nails first and just a couple screws... just in case the screws were too strong to bend down.
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Ran the assembly down the shaft and after some finagling... got it on there. After some twisting and prying I went to pull it up and sadly lost connection. Pulled back out the assembly and added more nails and some screws. About 50 at this time. Tired again and could now get it to connected enough that I could spin it, but still not pull it out.
Pulled it back out, and removed the flash light removed the camera (so I had more wiggle room) and added about 50 more screws, essentially a row of 12 or 13 screws spaced every 2 inches on 8 sides of the 2” pipe. Added a 1/16 thick aluminum end that was bevels to feet the stick into the pipe.
Then I placed it down in there and hit the wood pole. This time I pushed but only got on it by an inch or two. Pushed harder and harder, then it hit me to try to hammer it on. Connected a loose piece of pipe to the pipe I was holding and made a solid connection that could take some hits. Hit it with a hammer and turned it each time… slowly going down an inch or too at a time. Once I had about 2 feet of the long shaft inside of my spiked fleshlight I decided it was now or nothing.
I began to pull slowly, wondering if I could feel the added weight of the shaft coming up, or was just me imagining it… as it got closer and closer I still could not tell. It was nighttime by this moment, pitch black and all my cameras were off. I tired to go as slowly as I could to make sure it didn’t come out (if it was in fact in there). As I got to the top and began to pull back my makeshift giant S&M device from the lip of waste access… a saw the most glorious sight. A 5 foot shaft caught in the teeth of my predator anti-rape device!
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Mission Success!
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I cleaned up all my tools, washed off all the blood and waste from my hands, (yes, I am definitely going to die of dysentery now) texted the plumber that I would not be scheduling the crew and got it out, and stormed inside, grabbed my wife and showed her the 6 thousand dollar poop stick!
I am so happy, but had no one to tell so hope if you made it this far you enjoyed it.
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TL/DR: Had a plumbing issue that as simple as it sounded to me, was in fact a big issue.
Turns out it was going to be 6K to 10K to fix… if I couldn’t fix it myself. Sounded like a pressing DIY moment, so I invented a “Hellraiser Fleshlight” device that was able to fix the issue last night… just before I had to sell a kidney!