regular clog and flood - who can re-pitch waste line
Get a video and see for yourself. (do not take their word for it – i was told this by a retired plumber as most lie to get a big job). If you had tree roots at one time (and who knows, maybe that was a ruse itself), i don’t know how long a relining would last. Roots do like to enter where the clay city pipe meets the house cast iron pipe, and i do not know if (or how long) a lining can fix that. I wouldn’t trust what you have been TOLD, or assume, or apparently, see a video for yourself. IMO you ripped up you cement to find that you have a 1/16? per foot pitch, does that sound catastrophic to you? Are you (or tenants) putting cooking grease or oil down the drain? Obviously a huge no-no. If you re-pitch and grease is going down it won’t change a thing. I am not a plumbing expert but this sounds like you are searching for a problem as an amateur. Tree roots clog up my house 2x year. So i Roto Root 3x and use tree root kill as well. I’m sure i could find other problems if i wanted but i don’t – my problems are tree roots. I am certain i could find a plumber (or a whole army of them) that would tell me to replace everything. The fact that you do not “suspect” tree roots means to me that you don’t know. Do what you like but i usually work with facts and evidence. I guess you ripped up your cement and feel a big job is in order.
dorkofwindsor
in Plumbers and Plumbing 10 years and 3 months ago
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9 replies
11211 | 10 years and 3 months ago
We have about 2 clogs per year where we have to call roto-rooter or similar to get the waste-line flowing again From my research it seems one option is to just have the house trap area “rodded” 2-3 times per year to hopefully prevent the clog before it happens Another option is to try to find why it clogs – So we opened up the floor to expose the pipes and it looks to me like there is a problem with the pitch of the main 4″ house waste line I measured it roughly at 1/16″ per foot pitch when most info i’ve found online suggests minimum 1/8″ per foot pitch Can anyone recommend who to call to re-pitch a 4″ waste line- looks like about 25′ that is pitched too flat Most plumbers i’ve called so far seem more ready to deal with a clogged sink than this big pipe in basement
workisfun | 10 years and 3 months ago
before you undertake re-pitching, you may want to consider having root rooter or someone else use an endoscopic camera to make sure the cause is not a big rock or something else. root rooter did that for me to solve some clogging issues. it was also cool to watch on the monitor.
babysladkaya | 10 years and 3 months ago
We had exact the same issue in our house where 2-3 times per year it would clog. We hired Citywide plumbing, we are in Long Island, but they are all over, when came, inserted the camera and determined that the outside sewer pipe was broken, causing everything to back up. The installed a special liner in the pipe, it’s a new technology guaranteed for 25 years. Another plumber we hired before was telling us a bunch of BS about the pitch and that our house needs to have foundation restoration to pour concrete as the house settling is what caused the issue, but I had the inspector come in before the Citywide and he said, no worries, the house is fine, just need to check the pipes.
dorkofwindsor | 10 years and 3 months ago
i agree, your work may be futile. also, you did not mention tree roots. details?
babysladkaya | 10 years and 3 months ago
Yes, I forgot to mention, there were tree roots as well, so they cut them, I shall wait to see how well it worked, the job was done sometime in December, so come June/July, if I don’t have the flooding issue again, that means all worked well, but they are very reputable, stand by their work and if anything, will fix it for free.
bconstant | 10 years and 3 months ago
We are back-pitched as well (we’ve inspected the pipes, no obstructions). It’s a pain, but we just have our rooter guy come ever quarter and do his thing. We pay something like $1200 per year for that. Considering what it would cost to tear up our basement, street, and sidewalk, I think it’s a cost worth eating for the time being.
babysladkaya | 10 years and 3 months ago
I hear you, we were paying this price as well, but honestly, it got so bad that last time, the flooding happened when I had guests over and I basically had to tell people to not use bathroom, and we had to wrap up the dinner earlier and send them home, plus the smell was just awful. It cost me less than 5K to fix it.
dorkofwindsor | 10 years and 3 months ago
still waiting for 11211 to chime in on why the first suspect isn’t tree roots…..
11211 | 10 years and 3 months ago
Thank you for the replies babysladkaya if you have contact info of who can do this kind of work please post or email me: ROYL123 at yahoo . com (our estimate was much much much higher) We don’t suspect roots because there was a “re-lining” done roughly 8 years ago: a company came in with a camera and claimed there were roots and they cleared the roots and did a re-lining – from what I understand it was very expensive but you pay for the ~20 year guarantee (hopefully company does not change names!) Also about a month or 2 ago we were referred to a camera company and they put a camera down the line that goes out to the street and did not mention anything about tree roots – they said there were a few “shifts” but to me it looked like there was a good pitch and good distance to city sewer in this under the sidewalk line. We wanted them to check the inside lines with a camera but they claimed there were too many bends in the pipe to see any of the inside lines.