Happy ending to the clogged bath tub story

Well, you may think that there could be one happy ending to a clogged bath tub story: An unclogged tub.

You are half right:

I finally decided to call a plumber. just as I was making out my mind as to who call, I got in the mail a renewal notice from a company. It said "Dear Policyholder, your one year home warranty plan is due to expire."

I forgot all about this policy that the previous owner bought for me!

I call them up and told them that my bathtub is clogged. "No problem. Will send a plumber over there. Just give him $25."

For $25, a plummer came and took care of the matter.

It turned out that I did not have a drum trap. His hand-held snake, forcefully plunged and rotated, did the trick.

Downside of the story: no more daily visits to the gym to take showers. Before taking a shower, I was of course exercising. With the bathtub working now, I will probably not go to the gym as often!

Once again, thanks for all of you who took the time to write and advise me on the problem.

Deguza

When you see an experienced plumber in action, it gives new meaning to "snake handler" :)

Don't get bit - Call a plumber!

Some DIYers that try to clear the drain for days on end, call me due to frustration get so mad when I get the job done in 15 minutes and hand them a bill. I try to tell them a lot has to do to the fact I was trained to use drain cleaning machines and do plumbing, plus years of experience helps too.

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Originally Posted by SewerRatz

Some DIYers that try to clear the drain for days on end, call me due to frustration get so mad when I get the job done in 15 minutes and hand them a bill. I try to tell them a lot has to do to the fact I was trained to use drain cleaning machines and do plumbing, plus years of experience helps too.

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I figure it takes about a year for one of our new guys to be worth something in the drain cleaning biz...

Helps to have a cutter on the end. Don't ask, fellas, don't ask. :(

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Originally Posted by Redwood

I figure it takes about a year for one of our new guys to be worth something in the drain cleaning biz...

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A year and a few kinked cables. I had a guy that just could not get the hang of rodding a back to back fixture that had a blind cross. I had him try first he kept coming up the other sink. So I showed him how to do it I made the turn and unclogged the sinks in less than 5 minutes. Told him we have 25 more minutes keep trying till you get the feel of it. He was just not understanding you need to "feel" the cable as you feed it in, then you will feel the cross.

Heh.. guess you all can tell I really like drain cleaning.

Last one I did like that I pulled back DRY carpet. Glad the tenants next door were away at the time.

I am not sure if I have ever known a "real" plumber who even owned a hand held manual snake?

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Originally Posted by hj

I am not sure if I have ever known a "real" plumber who even owned a hand held manual snake?

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This one used a hand held one. I am sure he had a motorized one in his truck as well.

Deguza

Around here there are quite a few plumbing companies that do plumbing but not drain cleaning. When they get called by one of their customers they usually show up with a hand snake and try for a while, dump Clobber in the drain and charge $60-100 then leave saying if the Clobber doesn't work they need to call a company that does drain cleaning...

It's really kind of funny because we usually end up with a new repeat customer out of it. They are usually concerned that they were charged and got nothing for it. One of our policies is that if the drain doesn't drain when we are done there is no charge. Of course we don't charge $60-100 either...:D

For some reason I think they might have been better off saying right off the bat that they don't do drain cleaning and referring their customer rather than get the customer mad charging for non-results... $60-100 isn't even worth the trip never mind losing a steady customer...


Finding back to back drops on tubs can be fun. I had a job recently at a upscale hotel ($300/night). They had six rooms with back to back tubs that their engineering staff had destroyed 3 drain machines trying to clear. It was a blast! They had the overflows off already and the cleaning staff was ready to clean behind me. It doesn't get any better than that! I ended up spending about 5 minutes on each of them and got everyone of them on the first shot. It was showtime! Their engineering staff had been spanked!:D $$$$:D