Leejosepho
DIY scratch-pad engineer
- Messages
- 2,483
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 36
- Location
- 200 miles south of Little Rock
- Website
- www.nonameyet.org
My wife and I just moved 900 miles and into my mother-in-law's house for the purpose of trying to get my mother-in-law out of a nursing home and back into her own home. We are inside the city limits, and we have a straight 70' line of root-(Magnolia and Oak)-infested 4" clay pipe 2' below the surface and with plenty of fall between the house and the curb. We knew that line was blocked before we moved here.
The house is on a slab, and we have another 4" line of about the same length running at 90* all the way to the other end of the house where the washing machine and kitchen are located. The bathroom is at the business end of the house where everything turns to go on out to main in the center of the street.
One company I called has already come out and run a small cutter throught the line to get it flowing again, and that cost us $179.00. Their camera showed the worst cluster of roots at 12', then more at three other spots all the way out to 62'. That company wants $1800.00 to install 70' of 4" PVC, and I think that price ($25 per foot) is way to high. The connection at each end is nothing beyond a simple coupling, and nothing needs to be done on past the curb.
A local plumber has us on his schedule for next week, and he says he can run a 4" cutter through the line to completely clear it for $125.00. Overall, he says to just leave the clay pipe alone as long as it only needs clearing about every year or year-and-a-half or so.
Thoughts? The past 17 years of that would have already paid for a new line.
Along with all of that, our tub would not drain yesterday. So, we went and bought an inexpensive 25' snake to run down through the tub vent through the roof. That got the tub draining again, but I pulled up a small piece of root ... and that means the line under the house is also infested.
The plumber coming out next week plans to put a cross at the turn outside the house so we can have a cleanout going under the house as well as out toward the street.
The house is on a slab, and we have another 4" line of about the same length running at 90* all the way to the other end of the house where the washing machine and kitchen are located. The bathroom is at the business end of the house where everything turns to go on out to main in the center of the street.
One company I called has already come out and run a small cutter throught the line to get it flowing again, and that cost us $179.00. Their camera showed the worst cluster of roots at 12', then more at three other spots all the way out to 62'. That company wants $1800.00 to install 70' of 4" PVC, and I think that price ($25 per foot) is way to high. The connection at each end is nothing beyond a simple coupling, and nothing needs to be done on past the curb.
A local plumber has us on his schedule for next week, and he says he can run a 4" cutter through the line to completely clear it for $125.00. Overall, he says to just leave the clay pipe alone as long as it only needs clearing about every year or year-and-a-half or so.
Thoughts? The past 17 years of that would have already paid for a new line.
Along with all of that, our tub would not drain yesterday. So, we went and bought an inexpensive 25' snake to run down through the tub vent through the roof. That got the tub draining again, but I pulled up a small piece of root ... and that means the line under the house is also infested.
The plumber coming out next week plans to put a cross at the turn outside the house so we can have a cleanout going under the house as well as out toward the street.