# Luck of the draw on last drain call



## DUNBAR PLUMBING (Sep 11, 2008)

:no:



Last call of the evening, I 'thought' I'd put my Spartan 81 to work with a new cable. Bent up the cable trying to rod out a drain, got pissed and threw the machine and all off a porch into the truck. 

Had the 300 on the back of the truck, should of went for the bigger of the two first. 


Drop the trap, remove the trap arm, off I go with a 3/8" cable bent like a whip. 

I knew I was in for trouble on this drain given its age (50+ year old plumbing) and I didn't even want to look at what I had to go through, knew it was bad. 

Took 10 minutes to get the cable 20+ feet with reversing the machine every so many feet. Hard obstructions 3-5 times till I got out far enough where I could hear echoing through the drain, wasn't dripping anymore either. 

So I pull the cable back, starting to hear a ringing noise. ??? 


Got to the end, somehow I brought back a brass ring washer. Had to be from a drain machine that was in there years ago. 

Put the trap back on, ran hot water wide open, checked all lower fixtures to make sure I didn't move the clog further down the line, all was good.


Here's what I accomplished tonight:


Galvanized 2" that goes vertical in the wall, 90's and 18" to the horizontal, a tee turned vertical again for the drain. The rest of that line heads over and serves as a combination waste/vent picking up a toilet and lav on the basement level. 

How in the **** I was able to get that cable to drop through that straight tee was amazing. Couldn't of done that twice no matter what. 

Just looking at the drain configuration has me scared it'll clog again someday because it could take three times longer to get it open, knowing the difficulty of keeping a cable from shooting across the tee and following the vent across. 

It "could" be very possible at this point that I did go straight across, but the vertical pipe was warm from the water I was running. 

Or, I did go straight across, kitchen sink is now draining through the vents of the lav and toilet on the basement level. 

But the brass flat washer has me believing there was an attachment lost in that drain that I retrieved by accident, at least part of it.

2 drain calls today that made good money, both were relatively easy.


----------



## MACPLUMB777 (Jun 18, 2008)

Yeah Dunbar now thats why they pay us the big bucks ! :thumbup:


----------



## younger-plumber (Sep 12, 2008)

i love those calls...repipe pays way better than snaking ancient pipes!


----------



## DUNBAR PLUMBING (Sep 11, 2008)

I don't think I could do drain cleaning in and out daily. 4-6 times a week, great. 4-6 times a day, nevah!


----------



## CaberTosser (Mar 7, 2013)

One time I had a call where I was just augering a toilet. I had it cleared, but my auger was hanging up on something; I yarded on the thing and got it out with some of that twisted-wire chain attached to it like you'd use to hang infra-red heaters. I got quite a length out but it hung up on the leader buckle not making the tee-wye; it was a chain to tie up a dog in the yard! I checked the stack from the roof of the one storey bungalow and could see it, so I bent a retrieval hook on the end of a piece of copper tubing and went fishing, I needed to solder another 6' to it to reach the leader and snagged the thing. 

I surmised the cause of the chain being in that unusual spot to be the 3 rambunctious young sons of the customer.


----------



## JAraiza (May 7, 2012)

I have learned valuable lessons with cables getting hung up in the lines. The first lesson: use the right size machine for the job. never ever use a cutter on a kinked cable. Another lesson is not to use a kink cable from a roof vent in old plumbing. If you get several kinks in your cable line replace it fast or be aware of the consequences. If you do get one stuck try the forward and reverse method but sometimes letting the cable settle sometimes has done the trick of releasing it when pulling vigorously for any kind of retraction. Whatever you do, if you feel any resistance pull back, always pull back and check your head or cutter. Anyone else have any tricks for this? I probably left out some.


----------

