# The Most Disgusting Sewer Backup Thread



## DUNBAR PLUMBING

*Tell your story or post a video, post pictures but make it so horrible that you can smell it right through your computer.*

Here's the rules:


The more gross the backup, more disgusting, the better the job qualifies for "worst" sewer backup. 


Here are your key items of interest that will put you into the bonus round:


Corn - white mice - wipes, fabric softener sheets, feminine pads, and everything else that rolls down the pipe. 

Here's mine from sunday, it's guaranteed to be beat because this one was not bad compared some of the worst that I've done.

I'd say the winner should get a tetnus shot, on behalf of living through the most disgusting backup. 

Grab a camera! Just don't drop it in the money soup! :blink:


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## Miguel

Y'know. . . I never took a camera to the worst BU ever but I always hated them so much that I thought that I'd just price myself out of the market so that I wouldn't have to do them.
But it turns out that people can get so desparate in certain situations that they'll pay no matter what!
Some nights I found it hard to sleep but then I'd just think to myself, "eeeew, I got splattered with poo!" and off to neverland I'd go. 

Dunbar, good thread. Sorry that I don't have a "worse than that" to post but if we could upload memories then I know that I could top that cesspool.

Somebody has to have something share here!


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## Redwood

Thats nothing!
The worst one I ever saw would have had at least 3-4 of those stairs covered...

I told them get the basement pumped out before anything happens and left!


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING

*Give this thread 3 months*

and I bet people that view it will have to have a garbage can right next to them just to get through it. :laughing:


I purposely avoid jobs like that but I know a great deal do them, so this is your 15 minutes of fame!


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## affordabledrain

Dunbar. I like you. but that ain't **** in my neck of the woods.


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING

affordabledrain said:


> Dunbar. I like you. but that ain't **** in my neck of the woods.


 
I grade my video at a 2, 10 being highest on the gross factor.


Now, if I had a camera back in late 80's running drains in Cincinnati? 


I got some in the mental harddrive that I would say ranks at a 9.997 in the gross factor.

One simple description:

Black cesspool in the basement, been like that for 11 months and a HUD inspection caught the problem. Tenants didn't contact to have it cleaned because the basement was filled with dog crap and blood, whether it was on the floor or on the walls...dog fighting was taking place in that basement. The one dog in the back was hooked to a log chain, those ones that weigh a couple few pounds per foot.

This area where the drain was? Envision a 12' area that has turned into one huge mold cap. Got what looks like white/greenish foam kinda stuff throughout the covering that hasn't moved in months. A cheap cable stuck/bent/broke off in the drain with a piece of wood drove into the trap for some reason. Drain was cantered at least 10" from wall edge to center of drain.

I ended up squaring a hole in a 3" cast iron drain next to the cesspool and got it open, but where the machine was I was spinning the crap to the ceiling with my 1065.

I've never seen such a bad situation in the basement. All I know is the 8 people upstairs stated they'd kill the inspector if they "talked" about what they saw in the basement (about the evidence of dogs, not the drain backup) and I believe without a doubt, they meant it.

I still to this day cannot believe I got put into some of the situations I did in Cincinnati Ohio, and I only mentioned a mild one. 

I still can't even believe I do this **** for a living! And I'm 40! Life is half over, or almost over..****!


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## RealLivePlumber

I had one that I don't care to ever remember. It was the second to the last day with my previous employer, 3 days before I started my business.

Sewer ejector, in a 2'6" high crawlspace. Apartment. God knows how long before the pump had failed. 6" or so, corn and all. I put the hip waders on, and crawled around in that slop to change the pump. I must'a been out of my freaking mind. WTF was I thinking?

The building owner is one hard working mo fo though. He cleaned it up, spotless, himself. He does all that. I got some respect for the dude.

A couple months later, he calls me, and we put an exterior ejector pit and pump in. :thumbsup: He didn't want to go through that again. Been working for him ever since.


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## Airgap

This is all I've got right now, but I'll keep this thread in mind....


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## stillaround

What I want to know if thats a current picture of Airgap or is he posting pictures from 5 years ago ( an idea I toyed with )


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## Airgap

stillaround said:


> What I want to know if thats a current picture of Airgap or is he posting pictures from 5 years ago ( an idea I toyed with )


You mean my avatar?


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## SlickRick

I don't have a picture of this, but I wanted to share it. It happened in 1974 and I still laugh about it. I was an apprentice. A plumber and I were working on a stoppage in a clothing plant. 100's of women worked there. The plumber had me cut a 3" CI overhead line. When I did a steady stream of the awfullest mess I have ever seen started coming out, like 2 floors worth. The plumber jumps into action, runs and grabs a large trash can. But when he hit the wet concrete he slid on his back like a slip n slide for about 10' through that mess, Dragging the trash can behind, throwing up a rooster tail as he went. He stopped sliding right under the flow of the line I had cut, and the floor was so slick he couldn't get much traction to move quickly. It was way too much for 10 trash cans. 35 yrs and it was the worst and funnest thing I have ever seen. I thought he was going to kill me, but I couldn't help but laugh. :laughing: I learned not to wack a overhead line to see if it was full or not.


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING

*I havve failed the community of plumbingzone.com*

I had an opportunity this morning to do a job:


No walk out basement, everything is floating (4-6" of wastewater)

Basement is totally finished, which means I'm forced go through a floor drain which will destroy cables over time. I'm not even going to consider a toilet in regards to pulling it up with 3-6" of crap water all around it. 

Basically one huge tub in the basement.

I didn't want to get there right away, didn't want to wade through it and watch the machine spin in that mess, short of building a base to get it out of the water.

She never spoke of price, but that would of been an expensive one for her. Total destruction with a finished basement. I really did not want to do another one of these in one week. Call me weak. :laughing:

I gave it to my drain cleaning guy. I believe in picking my own battles just to understand what I went through years before, fighting for that almighty dollar.


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## stillaround

Airgap said:


> You mean my avatar?


 yep


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## Airgap

stillaround said:


> yep


That's Richard Tretheway from this old house....

This is my picture...


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## stillaround

That one I recognize. OOps. Anyway, Im sure you look younger than you are..hopefully that gets me out of this.
Theres nothing like talking about personal pics on a disgusting sewer thread.


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## Airgap

stillaround said:


> That one I recognize. OOps. Anyway, Im sure you look younger than you are..hopefully that gets me out of this.
> Theres nothing like talking about personal pics on a disgusting sewer thread.


 Man, I'm just razzing ya....

This is me....


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## Airgap

Seriously....


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## Bollinger plumber

Whenever I come across a job where there is already 4 or 5 inches of water in the basement I just use my jetter. Its a lot easier and safer than running an electric sewer machine in all that water. You can't make much more of a mess than what is already there anyway.


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## futz

slickrick said:


> ... But when he hit the wet concrete he slid on his back like a slip n slide for about 10' through that mess, Dragging the trash can behind, throwing up a rooster tail as he went. He stopped sliding right under the flow of the line I had cut, and the floor was so slick he couldn't get much traction to move quickly. It was way too much for 10 trash cans. 35 yrs and it was the worst and funnest thing I have ever seen. I thought he was going to kill me, but I couldn't help but laugh. :laughing: I learned not to wack a overhead line to see if it was full or not.


That reminds me of a job I was at last summer (or was it the summer before?). A 30-unit three-story strata townhouse building in Vancouver that we were renovating. I get a panicky call from the GC saying there's sewage coming out of the pipe stubs in the unit I most recently worked in. I tell him to plug it off as best he can and I'm on my way immediately. When I get there it has gotten worse. I Mission-cap off all the stubs, but it's obvious there's lots of pressure in the sani mains. Then the first floor neighbors start hollering - sewage is coming up in their tubs and toilets, fast! 

We don't know what's going on, but to save the entire first floor from a disaster I take a ladder into the underground parking and unscrew the MJ clamp on a 4" fitting cleanout to let it dump on the floor - it slopes to a far corner where there's a sump with pump keep things dry. As I loosen the screw on the clamp it BLOWS off and now there's a hardcore gushing 4" geyser of sewage blowing out the end of this thing. 

We let it run for maybe an hour while checking that it's getting pumped out properly. It does not slow down at all. Finally we decide that I should put the cleanout plug back in. I pick it up and jog through the sewage toward the ladder. Of course the sewage is like ice on ice and I flip flat on my back in the sewage-river on concrete. Lucky not to have split my skull open, I get up and force the plug into the still-gushing stream of sewage and tighten it back up.

Turns out the city main was plugged. Wonder how many destroyed units there were in other surrounding apartments? The one next door had lower units than the one I was in.

Next day there were reports that False Creek (local harbor area) had been closed because of high fecal coliform counts. :laughing::laughing: I wondered if all that sewage that got pumped into the storm drain was the cause. :laughing:


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## rocksteady

Airgap said:


> Seriously....
> View attachment 5110


 
What's all that purple stuff?









Paul


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## Protech

rocksteady said:


> What's all that purple stuff?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Paul


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## Turd Burglar

I was at this job on Saturday. Its not that gross as it could be, because before I got there, the homeowner had already vacuumed up all the slop that was covering the floor. This was all that was left....nasty anyway though.


















Just another Turd Burgle.


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING

Been doing a lot of drain calls where I keep running into completely root bound mains.

I just got back from one tonight that's definitely a dig job for my digging crew.


Got out about 50' would coil in to a stop. Back up, throw the machine in reverse and ran it through to get past the bad spot. Had to be careful because on the return it jammed up hard, had to throw the machine into reverse to get it to come out.


Didn't want to attempt that twice, never got the drain open. Larger cable/attachment would of never made it past that break, no way.


No real nasty jobs today but damn I smell like a sewer rat, real bad.


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## ChrisConnor

DUNBAR PLUMBING said:


> No real nasty jobs today but damn I smell like a sewer rat, real bad.


So what else is new??


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING

ChrisConnor said:


> So what else is new??


 

Glitter name branding












:laughing:


Tub drain I worked on today.


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## ChrisConnor

What, no floaters?


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING

Nope, toilet was flushing good. The branch catches a wye right before it went high wall to the sewer. Had a fernco right on the vertical below where the tub and kitchen sink tied in, vanity picks up off the tub.

Didn't smell but I'm expired on black pond jobs for awhile. Damn people lie lie lie about the situation every time.


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## ChrisConnor

Ever tried the Kinetic Water Ram?


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## brodie

Ok Ok Ok. Our company has contracts with 7 funeral homes and wouldnt believe what they push down that very small 3 or 4 inch drain. They back up regularly. I was on a drain call in Downtown Toronto about a month ago, usually there are one or two older stiffs in the prep room (thats where your clearing the drain), but this time there was a gentleman that looked like he was in his early fifties and was in a car accident, and the whole time I was clearing the drain I had the stiffs face looking directly at me all bruised and mangled. 

Thats not even the disgusting part, Im literraly gagging as im recounting this story, I was in my rubber boots with about 2 inches of blood, intestines, organs and general body fluids of all kinds. And it took about 70 feet of cable till I hit the blockage, I have no idea what he put down the drain, but it took another 30 or so feet to push it down into the city sewer. 

The Next time I have to go on a funeral home call Ill take a short video with my phone for everyone to see.


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## RealLivePlumber

brodie said:


> Ok Ok Ok. Our company has contracts with 7 funeral homes and wouldnt believe what they push down that very small 3 or 4 inch drain. They back up regularly. I was on a drain call in Downtown Toronto about a month ago, usually there are one or two older stiffs in the prep room (thats where your clearing the drain), but this time there was a gentleman that looked like he was in his early fifties and was in a car accident, and the whole time I was clearing the drain I had the stiffs face looking directly at me all bruised and mangled.
> 
> Thats not even the disgusting part, Im literraly gagging as im recounting this story, I was in my rubber boots with about 2 inches of blood, intestines, organs and general body fluids of all kinds. And it took about 70 feet of cable till I hit the blockage, I have no idea what he put down the drain, but it took another 30 or so feet to push it down into the city sewer.
> 
> The Next time I have to go on a funeral home call Ill take a short video with my phone for everyone to see.


 
I was working in a funeral home for, and had to turn off the water service, 

So, I'm in the basement, searching. Nope, not this room, hmm, maybe in here. Nope. What's behind door #3. You guessed it. Dead guy, on the table, in all his glory.

Man, that really freaked me out. Still gives me shivers.

BTW, an introduction would be appreciated by all.


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## Bollinger plumber

I have worked in a few funerals homes but they always covered up the people they were working on to show their respects for them. I always said a prayer for them to have a safe journey home too.


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING

I don't know why they don't cover them up at the homes I work at. The picture they request of "better days" so they can do the makeup is what strikes discomfort.

If you saw the mortician that preps these bodies, perfect for any halloween gig. The dude is the perfect scary.


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