# Sand in drain line, advice?



## JimmyMac (Nov 4, 2015)

We have 2 different locations that we have issues with sand in a main line, both are supermarket/large big box stores. Both are 4" lines which are about 1/2 or more full of sand over 200' length and ballpark 400'plus to exterior of building. Neither have 2 way clean outs outside...no need for those(sarcasm)...

We are going to try and forward jet the line out to the street, or at least as far as possible, then camera line to see how it looks. 

You guys have any other thoughts/ideas? 

Rooter just stirs it up and sand falls back to bottom of pipe.


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## OpenSights (Mar 23, 2015)

A bit of advice... before you blow all that sand out to the city, give them a call. They will want to be there with their own jetter or vac.

I learned that with a bad grease line before.


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## gear junkie (Jun 20, 2008)

Good luck but don't expect great results. You need to pull all the sand in one direction. Pushing doesn't always work so well. Be careful.....sand is easy to get stuck in if you go to fast as the sand will settle behind your hose.


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## JimmyMac (Nov 4, 2015)

Agreed, will for one, the other runs to a lift station on the property(site owned) and will just go to the bottom of the pit where it can't hurt anything.


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## ShtRnsdownhill (Jan 13, 2016)

can you get a vac truck and vacuum them out?


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## JimmyMac (Nov 4, 2015)

gear junkie said:


> Good luck but don't expect great results. You need to pull all the sand in one direction. Pushing doesn't always work so well. Be careful.....sand is easy to get stuck in if you go to fast as the sand will settle behind your hose.


Good point, go slow...will do, don't want to make a bad situation worse...


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## JimmyMac (Nov 4, 2015)

ShtRnsdownhill said:


> can you get a vac truck and vacuum them out?


Not logistically possible, too many things on line to cap off to create enough suction to pull sand out...


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## cable or root (Oct 7, 2015)

Good luck, but they're probably screwed. With that much sand there's probably a lot of bad breaks. Don't get stuck. They may try to pass the blame off on you. Bottom line is they need serious repairs. If part of the line broke that bad there's likely going to be more breaks in the near future. My advice is to either cut your losses, or convince them to replace everything.


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## JimmyMac (Nov 4, 2015)

cable or root said:


> Good luck, but they're probably screwed. With that much sand there's probably a lot of bad breaks. Don't get stuck. They may try to pass the blame off on you. Bottom line is they need serious repairs. If part of the line broke that bad there's likely going to be more breaks in the near future. My advice is to either cut your losses, or convince them to replace everything.


Its not from a broken line, its from the floor scrubbers dumped into a mopsink, which is at the end of the line with little to no flow to help push the debris out...

Old man used to say "assume responsibility or blame someone else", already blamed someone else and made that very clear....


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## ShtRnsdownhill (Jan 13, 2016)

JimmyMac said:


> Its not from a broken line, its from the floor scrubbers dumped into a mopsink, which is at the end of the line with little to no flow to help push the debris out...
> 
> Old man used to say "assume responsibility or blame someone else", already blamed someone else and made that very clear....


sell them a separator to catch the sand..after they get the bill for cleaning the mains, they should be happy to pay it..


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## fixitright (Jan 5, 2012)

How about a sludge pushing cutter? Electric Eel makes one.

Heard good things about it.

Well, I heard good things about it on this forum.

Good to see you still on line Jerry, get well soon.


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## Flyout95 (Apr 13, 2012)

Clogchopper with flow behind it has helped me move some sludge..


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## Shoot'N'Plumber (Apr 27, 2013)

why not install a clean out outside? And while you've got the hole opened you can get that line very clean and get a good inspection of try condition.


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## Drain Pro (Nov 3, 2013)

Forward pushing nozzle like an enz chisel point and lots of water. 


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## ChrisConnor (Dec 31, 2009)

That's a long line to be full of sand. You're going to need to open the line and jet it from downstream. Can you string a line from the sewer and pull a jet hose up?


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## plungerboy (Oct 17, 2013)

ChrisConnor said:


> That's a long line to be full of sand. You're going to need to open the line and jet it from downstream. Can you string a line from the sewer and pull a jet hose up?


I dont understand why you need a string? Are you saying, let the string make it from the inside of the building to the manhole, then tie it to your jetter hose and pull?


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## ChrisConnor (Dec 31, 2009)

plungerboy said:


> I dont understand why you need a string? Are you saying, let the string make it from the inside of the building to the manhole, then tie it to your jetter hose and pull?


I dont know if the downstream end has any branches.


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## gear junkie (Jun 20, 2008)

ShtRnsdownhill said:


> sell them a separator to catch the sand..after they get the bill for cleaning the mains, they should be happy to pay it..


Agree on the seperator. Then use a rear only nozzle, pull all the sand back into the seperator and shovel or vac it out from there.


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## saysflushable (Jun 15, 2009)

Maybe with a HUGE jetter you can do it. I'm not sure. I would try to sell them on an outside manhole and pull the sand down the way a jetter is supposed to work. Again maybe a 20 or 40 gpm jetter could push it forward but I haven't had much luck with 9 gpm especially pushing that distance.


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## JimmyMac (Nov 4, 2015)

Appreciate all the advice couple things..don't think the sludge cutter or clog chopper will do it, its sand will just stir up the sand and it will fall back to the bottom of the pipe.

CO outside would be awesome, not very cost effective...would be VERY deep and in concrete or asphalt.

I am leaning against the forward pushing jetter, concern is it will build a dam of sand in the pipe, making a bad situation worse.

I have definitely thought about the string idea but closest access back up the line is not feasible without the backwards CO and would be 500'+ away from area of line that is the issue. And yes it has many different branches so without string would be shooting blind on where jetter would end up....have had that happen before...NOT GOOD!

I like the separator idea...but would be pulling the sand back uphill in the pipe to separator...you think the jetter would pull the sand back uphill in the pipe to the separator?


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## ChrisConnor (Dec 31, 2009)

A vactor hose and jet from inside opening would be my next suggestion.


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## MACK ATTAKK (Jan 11, 2015)

I ran into a similar issue at a nursing home. What worked for us is we let the rodder continually spin. As we dumped large volumes of water into the drain with hoses hooked up directly to the house water system and flushing toilets while running all the sinks. Using so much water it could barely be contained in the pipe. So once the sand got lifted up off the bottom it was swept away. So if your have trouble getting that much water volume maybe you could hook up to the fire hydrant. And run a bunch of hose.


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## ChrisConnor (Dec 31, 2009)

MACK ATTAKK said:


> I ran into a similar issue at a nursing home. What worked for us is we let the rodder continually spin. As we dumped large volumes of water into the drain with hoses hooked up directly to the house water system and flushing toilets while running all the sinks. Using so much water it could barely be contained in the pipe. So once the sand got lifted up off the bottom it was swept away. So if your have trouble getting that much water volume maybe you could hook up to the fire hydrant. And run a bunch of hose.


Yeah, but he's gotta go 400'.


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## saysflushable (Jun 15, 2009)

I'm not talking outside reverse clean out IM talking manhole with vac truck sucking up the sand.


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## plungerboy (Oct 17, 2013)

A warthog nozzle would work in my opinion. 
1F-2R be careful to not let it dig in and Get buried. 

CO vs cost: either you have a sewer that doesn't work or you install a CO. Seems like simple math to me. 

Also once your the hero and fix this drain do you really think your going to get people to stop dumping crap in to this drain. It will happen again. People are creatures habit. Sell them a CO.


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## Drain Pro (Nov 3, 2013)

plungerboy said:


> A warthog nozzle would work in my opinion.
> 1F-2R be careful to not let it dig in and Get buried.
> 
> CO vs cost: either you have a sewer that doesn't work or you install a CO. Seems like simple math to me.
> ...



Very well said. 


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## saysflushable (Jun 15, 2009)

With my size jetter 9 gpm at 3000psi I have no luck with the warthog pushing. So if your going to try the warthog try with a bigger jetter


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

MACK ATTAKK said:


> I ran into a similar issue at a nursing home. What worked for us is we let the rodder continually spin. As we dumped large volumes of water into the drain with hoses hooked up directly to the house water system and flushing toilets while running all the sinks. Using so much water it could barely be contained in the pipe. So once the sand got lifted up off the bottom it was swept away. So if your have trouble getting that much water volume maybe you could hook up to the fire hydrant. And run a bunch of hose.


Good idea,I was gonna say plug the line off and flood it completely and try to wash the sand out of it


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## plungerboy (Oct 17, 2013)

What did you end up doing to open the drain?


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## saysflushable (Jun 15, 2009)

How about trying something extremely old school. A push rod with a small scoop on it. So what if you have to go to a temp agency and hire somebody for a week to work the push rod? As long as your pulling sand back with every scoop your gaining.

During the recession I wanted to do this at a baby formula factory with a cast iron pipe Half full of scale for about 150 feet. No practical way to jet or replace.

It seemed far fetched so I never proposed it and they didn't like my other ideas. I never found out if they ever cleaned the line. I wish I would have proposed it I was slow and could have spent a week there myself&#55357;&#56832;.


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## plungerboy (Oct 17, 2013)

plungerboy said:


> What did you end up doing to open the drain?


 well??


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## TAG Nozzles (Feb 19, 2016)

The...............offering a great cleaning power for pipes with big residues such as wood, sand, rock, etc.


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

plungerboy said:


> A warthog nozzle would work in my opinion.
> 1F-2R be careful to not let it dig in and Get buried.
> 
> CO vs cost: either you have a sewer that doesn't work or you install a CO. Seems like simple math to me.
> ...



Amen to that, I have found if it's more than two people, you can't change them, you have to change the system.


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## JimmyMac (Nov 4, 2015)

Sorry crazy week last week, we tried to unstop one location that was the easier of the 2. What I came up with was 3/8" pex line strapped to camera with a jet nozzle at the end, actually pushed a fairly good stream out problem we ran into was not just sand but lots of wood in the line(bits of broken up pallets), which makes it worse. We are going to try again later in the week, run 200' of rooter cable out and pull back jetter hose from manhole to clear as much out as possible from one end. Then from cleanout on the other end push jetter down line attached to sewer rod as far out as we can and pull back out as much debris as possible and vac truck it out. Gonna be a mess but in a back fire room with nothing in it, easy cleanup. 
Still going to try same with pex at other location, which has less access on either end, maybe tomorrow.


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## JimmyMac (Nov 4, 2015)

Also its a process, working on sediment traps for each location. Appreciate all the extra knowledge!


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## saysflushable (Jun 15, 2009)

I just cleared 45 foot of some kind of media out a 3 inch PVC with 1.5 feet of back fall . the farm dug up 1 end for us then we ran 7\8 cable through. I have enough 7/8 so we could always have enough cable on the end so we just pulledl the cable out fast, disconnect and rehooked. Media was pooring out. Then we wrapped some decent balls of tape on then we taped rags balled up on the cable. In no time the pipe was clear. We did this after wasting a bunch of time with the jetter and VAcuum. We finally convinced them if they dig we will clear it. 

Yes 1.5 feet of back fall.

What I'm getting at is think totally different. I would still put a small scoop on a push rod and pay a guy to pull the sand out 1 scoop at a time.


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## JimmyMac (Nov 4, 2015)

Great idea! We actually ended up doing the same thing, I sent my most experienced plumber on the longest of the 2 lines and he found that the line was not as bad as it appeared...ie..."objects in camera are smaller than they appear" There was a belly in the line of about 20' or so after that the line flowed downhill pretty good. He was able to flood the line with LOTS of H20 and get most of the sand out. Then he got some shrink wrap from the store and made a ball behind the camera but not too big to push the remainder of the debris out and down the line while flushing with lots of H20. Once it got past the bellly line flowed freely.


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## JimmyMac (Nov 4, 2015)

Other location that we thought would be better/easier to cleanout was waaaay worse. Luckily end of line was in an exterior fire room, were able to slowly push a small jetter out a CO and down line about 150-200'and pull back ALOT of the sand/debris and use vac truck to suck out ALOT of the debris at a floor drain 1'away from CO. Did this MANY times then ran camera and were finally able to see the line. SOOOO glad we did NOT forward jet line out to the street, found multiple remodel add-ons to line with multiple fernco connections in floor that had dropped the entire T add on an inch or more. We would have destroyed those with forward jetter...only 4' in floor under a refrigerated case on the sales floor, that woulda been a cluster! Biggest problem is line is not sloped properly, not off by 1.5' but still not going down hill.


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## JimmyMac (Nov 4, 2015)

Appreciate all the input from everyone!


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