# @#$% Backwater valves!



## JK949 (Mar 18, 2009)

Got a call that I would be helping another plumber but he's stuck at his present job. I roll up to a two story house, downstairs has powder room, laundry with sink and kitchen. All below street level. Upstairs has master and full hall bath at street level. Downstairs laundry use causes powder room toilet to gurgle then overflow. Has been a very intermittent problem 

Call tech I'm supposed to be helping, he suspects soft stoppage of tissue or whatever. He suggests running my 3/8 cable with arrowhead bit down k/s cleanout to try to poke hole in clog to let it drain, than pull toilet for mainline machine.

I can't say I would have done that, I probably would have pulled toilet first. Anyways I run the 3/8 cable with no bit on the end, don't have arrowhead bit. I figure the worst that happens is I either don't get through stoppage or I slip through it making a hole.

I run water while sending the cable down, make it out all 75'. I put the foot pedal under the frame to retrieve while I run the laundry sink too. I check on my machine again and find it stopped. I pop the bulb under the frame again and see the problem. Spin the drum own way, it bogs down and stops. Spin in reverse, cable gets pulled further in the line forcefully. 

Start making calls to the other plumber and field manager. Happens to be in horrible cell reception area. Manager suspects backwater valve, but also wants me to work with machine to try to get cable out of line. Mess with machine a bit, found it still unrelenting. Grab a shovel, head to crawlspace, find 3" vertical pipe heading into the dirt. I dig around it, find concrete vault box under 1' of dirt. Pull lit, 2' down under another dirt layer is backwater valve. Soaked 4 cap bolts with P Blaster, impact driver wouldn't budge them. Night was getting on and I could think of all the bad things to happen if we tried to cut it out tonight. 

Heading back early tomorrow to give it another crack.


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## Will (Jun 6, 2010)

Good luck with that....


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## Widdershins (Feb 5, 2011)

JK949 said:


> Got a call that I would be helping another plumber but he's stuck at his present job. I roll up to a two story house, downstairs has powder room, laundry with sink and kitchen. All below street level. Upstairs has master and full hall bath at street level. Downstairs laundry use causes powder room toilet to gurgle then overflow. Has been a very intermittent problem
> 
> Call tech I'm supposed to be helping, he suspects soft stoppage of tissue or whatever. He suggests running my 3/8 cable with arrowhead bit down k/s cleanout to try to poke hole in clog to let it drain, than pull toilet for mainline machine.
> 
> ...


 We put a 'Backwater Valve Installed' label on any C/O plugs upstream of any backwater valves we install.

Been doing it for years.


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## Dun' Right (Sep 27, 2010)

I had this happen with a mainline machine and 3/4" cable deep in kansas city. They have combination storm/sewer's down in that part of town, and we were able to go down the manhole and walk up the sewer and pull the cable on through. Bad situation if thats not an option........


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## RealLivePlumber (Jun 22, 2008)

Start digging.


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## Duall Damage (Apr 3, 2011)

To avoid this problem in the future sell the customer a 2 way ground level clean out. You do the customer no good when you pull the toilet and try to run 3" to 4" blades through the closet bend, its a pain in the butt and you take the chance of damaging the customers interior dragging your machine in the house and splattering the walls with waste water. Install the clean out after the back water valve (flow towards street) and label its existence. Good Luck my friend.


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## SewerRatz (Apr 25, 2009)

Was the line draining by the time you where rolling up the rod? 

I have had this happen with my 1065 in the past. My father taught me how to get it unstuck as long as the line was open. You pull back on the cable hard to close the flapper as much as possible, fill the tubs, kitchen sink lav sink washing machine. Let them all go at the same time, as they are draining, push the cable forward enough to allow the flapper to open all the way, and then pull your cable out. In the few times this happened to me the above method has always worked for.


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## RealLivePlumber (Jun 22, 2008)

SewerRatz said:


> Was the line draining by the time you where rolling up the rod?
> 
> I have had this happen with my 1065 in the past. My father taught me how to get it unstuck as long as the line was open. You pull back on the cable hard to close the flapper as much as possible, fill the tubs, kitchen sink lav sink washing machine. Let them all go at the same time, as they are draining, push the cable forward enough to allow the flapper to open all the way, and then pull your cable out. In the few times this happened to me the above method has always worked for.


That right there ^ is genius. :thumbsup: And priceless info. 

Thank you for sharing.


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