Floor Drain Sabotaged With Sacrete

[Deeana]

I have inherited a house that had tenants living in it. They were on a month-to-month lease and I gave them very ample notice that I wanted to sell the house and they would need to either buy it or move out. They could not afford to buy it due to poor credit and were very unhappy about having to move out.

Now the house is vacant. In the basement is a floor drain. I found a bag of quick set type secrete sitting on the floor near this floor drain and when I took off the floor drain cover I could see a gray powdery material around the edges of the pipe. When I shine a light down into the pipe I can see gray down there. Also when I poke down there with a metal rod it just stops. So I have concluded that the tenant sabotaged this floor drain by pouring quick-crete and water down into the floor drain.

I watched a video where a guy used a product called "Speedy Clean Concrete Dissolver" along with a "Sewer Jetter" power wash drain cleaner. The ads for this product claim it will dissolve through a concrete block in about 8 hours. And it is not muriatic acid, says it is safe for the environment/sewers.

Has anyone here ever used this product for this purpose? If so, I'd appreciate any tips you might offer.

I am going to order two bottles of it online and try it, prior to committing to having a professional come in and dig up the floor drain and trap.

 

[Terry]

I had a tile guy drop mortar into a shower drain the other day. I used a flat blade screwdriver to chip away at it, and a shop vac to suck out the bits of mortar.
I would be interested in learning how yours is fixed. The more methods the better.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Deeana]

I had a tile guy drop mortar into a shower drain the other day. I used a flat blade screwdriver to chip away at it, and a shop vac to suck out the bits of mortar.
I would be interested in learning how yours is fixed. The more methods the better.

I will be posting updates and also today I took a video of what I am doing with my own sewer.

First of all, I ended up buying one gallon of a product called "Bac Set Platinum" online from a company called Ro-mix out of Texas. Their website is romixchem.com. One gallon of this - which is their strongest concrete dissolver - is $25.00 plus $15 shipping to Pennsylvania. Ro-Mix is selling this size as a "sample". Many companies make this type of product nowadays, but the Bac Set Platinum is supposed to be 6 times stronger than others.

These products are not any kind of a sulphuric or muriatic acid. They are safe for flushing on through the system into public sewers. They are made from a by-product of sugar cane, of all things. (I had no idea that sugar is known to chemically break down portland cement, which is what concrete and mortar mixes have in them)

This stuff is truly amazing! The challenge with it is that it is a liquid, and you want to expose the concrete or the mortar to the liquid for 15-20 minutes at least. Is there any way you can get into the drain line downstream somewhere from the shower drain and stop it up with a small test ball or something like that? In order to be able to pour the liquid Bac Set Platinum down into the shower drain and have the mortar inside the drain line be soaking in the chemical?

Even if I could not get the line stopped up, for the money, I would buy this stuff and try it. You do NOT run water down the drain before using this product. You want the Back Set all by itself to go onto the mortar. It will break the chemical bonds and the mortar turns into a "wet sand" consistency. Or if you can somehow stop up that drain and bathe the mortar in the Bac Set, it will turn it into a brown/gray colored thin, foamy "slurry". Then it can be flushed on out through the line with water - a hose or power jetter would be best.

Water stops the action of the chemical.

This chemical is sold industrially to cement companies for use on the cleanup of their trucks and equipment. They have videos on youtube of huge cement trucks being cleaned with just the Bac Set sprayed on and then a hose - not even a power washer. Amazing to see.

Ro-Mix Chemicals in Texas.

 

[Deeana]

I will be posting updates and also today I took a video of what I am doing with my own sewer.

First of all, I ended up buying one gallon of a product called "Bac Set Platinum" online from a company called Ro-mix out of Texas. Their website is romixchem.com. One gallon of this - which is their strongest concrete dissolver - is $25.00 plus $15 shipping to Pennsylvania. Ro-Mix is selling this size as a "sample". Many companies make this type of product nowadays, but the Bac Set Platinum is supposed to be 6 times stronger than others.

These products are not any kind of a sulphuric or muriatic acid. They are safe for flushing on through the system into public sewers. They are made from a by-product of sugar cane, of all things. (I had no idea that sugar is known to chemically break down portland cement, which is what concrete and mortar mixes have in them)

This stuff is truly amazing! The challenge with it is that it is a liquid, and you want to expose the concrete or the mortar to the liquid for 15-20 minutes at least. Is there any way you can get into the drain line downstream somewhere from the shower drain and stop it up with a small test ball or something like that? In order to be able to pour the liquid Bac Set Platinum down into the shower drain and have the mortar inside the drain line be soaking in the chemical?

Even if I could not get the line stopped up, for the money, I would buy this stuff and try it. You do NOT run water down the drain before using this product. You want the Back Set all by itself to go onto the mortar. It will break the chemical bonds and the mortar turns into a "wet sand" consistency. Or if you can somehow stop up that drain and bathe the mortar in the Bac Set, it will turn it into a brown/gray colored thin, foamy "slurry". Then it can be flushed on out through the line with water - a hose or power jetter would be best.

Water stops the action of the chemical.

This chemical is sold industrially to cement companies for use on the cleanup of their trucks and equipment. They have videos on youtube of huge cement trucks being cleaned with just the Bac Set sprayed on and then a hose - not even a power washer. Amazing to see.

Ro-Mix Chemicals in Texas.

 

[Deeana]

Update on my own sabatoged sewer:

I got the 1 gallon plastic jug of Ro-Mix "Bac Set Platinum" concrete dissolver. Purchased online fro Ro-Mix Chemical Co. out of Texas. 1 gal. "sample" cost $25.00 and shipping to Pennsylvania was $15.00. It came in 4 days.

"Bac Set Platinum" is apparently a newer product for this company, listed as "6 times stronger" than other concrete dissolvers.

I started at the floor drain in the basement. There was a bag of Quickcrete mortar and a an empty gallon milk jug sitting nearby. Telltale gray looking "dust" around floor drain lip when I lifted the lid. I carefully poured about 2 cups of the Bac Set Platinum into the pipe. It immediately "foamed" a bit. I waited 15 minutes and then used a heavy metal crowbar and alernately a piece of metal angle iron to "mix" the brew down in the floor drain. Soon I was able to begin bringing up out a sandy-like wet gloppy substance onto the concrete floor beside the floor drain.

I was wishing I had something like a long handled soup ladle to use as a tool, but did not have anything like that available.

The other place I began working is at a basement floor level cleanout - downstream from the floor drain towards the outside sewer line by about 10 ft. A friend who is a plumber told me this would be the "stand pipe for the house trap". This sucker was full up with mortar to within a 1/2 inch of the top of the pipe where the cap screws on.

I began by carefully pouring as much of the Bac Set Platinum as I could onto the top of the mortar - probably only about 1/2 cup. It foamed. I left it for 20 minutes and when I went back, had softened, sand-like consistency goop that I could scrape out. I did this again and again, and each time was able to get on down into and remove the goopy, wet-sand like dissolved mortar.

I did not use any water at all for this. Just the Bac Set Platinum. I ended up getting a LOT of mortar out of both the floor drain and the pipe. As I went further and further down into the "stand pipe" thingy (there's a techincal term for you!) I would use the heavy crow bar to dig down into the softened mortar as I went. To get the Bac Set Platinum on down into the softened sandy stuff.

I worked for 3 1/2 hours on these two places the first day.

Today I went back over. I had made myself a tool for scooping out the wet mortar slurry. I had a large stainless steel soup ladle which I firmly attached to a long mop handle using duct tape. Well, guess whatt? The ladle was TOO BIG and would not fit down into the stand pipe. Da-yum!

So I worked again with the crow bar and the angle iron. After about 1/2 hour today I began to have a strong smell of sewer gas coming up out of the stand pipe. So I am figuring I have gotten something open? Because there has not been any sewer gas smell until today.

Before I left today I dumped the remainder of what I had of the Bac Set Platinum (around 4-5 cups) down into the floor drain, hoping it will go in and lay in the line between the floor drain and the house trap.

I have ordered two more gallons of the Bac Set Platinum. I do not have the water on in the house yet. I have my plumber friend coming on Friday to install a new main shutoff valve and a required backflow preventer. Once I get the water on I can use a hose to flush some of the dissolved mortar on through the sewer line.

My plan is to continue to use the Bac Set Platinum as it seems needed and then to have a mechanical electric eel service and probably a power sewer jet cleaning.

I will post updates.

 

[Deeana]

Well guys (and any gal plumbers) ,

I have now decided to turn my drain problems over to my trusted master plumber. For him to dig up the basement and do whatever is necessary to replace the underground drain lines. And the house trap, since they are required in this county.

The reason for this is that despite the fact that this Bac Set chemical has worked to a certain extent, I think it best to just bite the bullet and have a proper repair performed. So I contacted my friend the plumber and he will start on this next week.

I do want to report that in one sense the Bac Set chemical worked. After spending another 4 hours or so yesterday working at the cleanout located at the under-the-basement-concrete-floor house trap, I actually have the outgoing line open to a small extent. I can now run a hose - with water on only "gently" and the drain will take the water. BUT when I increase the flow of the hose water, the clean out backs up. Plus the line from the floor drain over to the clean out is just trickling water in as far as I can see.

So basically there is a whole lotta Sacrete/concrete/mortar in the drain pipes. Too much for this chemical to eradicate in this situation, I have concluded.

I do want to stress, however, that the Bac Set Platinum by Ro-mix Chemicals of Texas DOES break down concrete/mortar. So if someone has a drain where just a bit of mortar got down into the drain, this stuff might really help. It is another tool to know about.

My best to all of you here. I will be taking photos once we get down to the lines and will come back and post some of them here.

 

[Pipemagic20]

Most concrete dissolver products are for concrete splashes and cleaning tools. If you have a blocked drain with concrete, mortar, tilers grout you want a product thats going to be absorbed into the blockage and soften it to then flush and clear from the drain pipe.
Best product to use is the Croc Crete product. There is plenty of videos and photos of the product working for this type of problem.