Another plumbing mystery.

[CurlyDave]

Just out of curiosity, what would block a vent stack up on a two story house.......?

To me, the most likely culprit is leaves.

When I remodeled my house in the 1990 time frame, I took apart the old plumbing, which had been ip place for 60 years.

There was at least 10' of leaves in the vent pipe.

The opening is small, but if you think about this, if several inches of leaves reach your yard during fall, it is a good bet the that those same several inches fell into your vent.

Enough years of that and the stack will plug.

After that experience, I always put a U-bend (two 90 degree elbows) on top of the vent so it points down. Despite what building inspectors will try to tell you, this has no effect on venting capability and prevents anything from falling into the vent.

 

[MossRoad]

Hmmm. Sounds like I need to make a trip under the house. I sure hope there is an access stub to the the main sewage line.

I still wonder why the shower in the kids bathroom doesn't gurgle when their toilet is flushed?

How many vent stacks do you have?
Also, it could be blocked between one and not the other.
As others have mentioned, it could also be a partial plug or restriction in one of the lines.

 

[plumbpaul]

It may sound crazy but put some liquid soup in the overflow pipe in the tank.If sound goes away the line is trapped (holds water).

 

[N80]

I flushed both toilets upstairs at the same time and they drained slower than normal so it sounds like this is a partial blockage somewhere in the drain lines rather than a vent stack. Guess I'm going to have to get the plumber out here. Hope its not the septic tank.

The frustrating thing is that my house is under contract and I'm moving out in 3 weeks. I'd love to leave this problem for the new owner but I don't think my conscience will let me do it......even though I'm selling it for a ridiculously low price.

 

[dmccarty]

Hmmm. Sounds like I need to make a trip under the house. I sure hope there is an access stub to the the main sewage line.

Years ago a coworker had a blocked drain line one morning. His house was BELOW the street sewer line so his sewage had to be pump up hill.

He was able to clear the blockage problem which was behind the pump. He saw another line clean out and figured while he was already down in the crawl space he might as well check it...

He opened the clean out....

Which was on the line between the pump and the street sewer....

And promptly drained what was in the sewer line into his crawl space....

As well as all over himself.

He puked. :laughing:

ALOT.

He had to put lime in the crawlspace to "clean" up the mess. Spending lots of time in the shower did not seem to clean him up. :laughing: The smell would not get out of his nose and head.

He puked on the side of the road driving into work.

Glad to see you are going to get a plumber.

Later,
Dan

 

[N80]

Plumber is coming out today. And while I'll admit that changing a full baby diaper has made me gag before, I have also manually cleaned out an old septic tank and did fairly well. After an hour of shoveling sludge and such you kind of get used to it.

 

[N80]

My wife called the plumber and he's coming out this afternoon and said he would do a free estimate but that it sounded to him like it was the septic tank and that it would need to be pumped out. If they can find it easily and dig down to the lid by hand that is only $180. More if they need a back hoe of course.

It doesn't seem like it is a tank issue to me but for $180 its probably a good idea to let them pump it.

 

[Toyboy]

Good idea not to have your lids buried either. I've had ours put at grade level to make it better to get at.

 

[N80]

Good idea not to have your lids buried either. I've had ours put at grade level to make it better to get at.

Very true. The one at my cabin is buried but just barely. The plumber came just as I was leaving to come back to work. He was stumped too. He's going to snake the shower which will go down the main line too. That cost $200 for some reason. I told him to try that and then quit if it didn't work. I can't spend hundreds of dollars for the plumber to flounder around trying to figure it out.

 

[dmccarty]

Our septic tank has two compartments. One compartment has the filter and a riser above the tank lid. The riser has a lid as well. This riser is required by code so that the filter can be easily accessed.

What is dumb is that when you pump the tank the compartment with the solids is what needs to be pumped. THAT compartment's lid is buried and the code does not require a riser. A dishonest tank pumper could pump the easily found side which is liquid and leave the solids behind.....

When had our tank pumped we had to dig down two feet or so to get to the sold compartment lid. The pump guy put in riser so we don't have to do this nonsense again.

I did know where the tank was located so it was somewhat easy to get to the buried lid but it still took three of us digging to uncover the lid.

Later,
Dan