AboutSharon McCarthy Expertise I can help with most questions about residential plumbing problems including septic systems, and some questions about irrigation. I have no experience with commercial installations or codes.
Experience I have been a sole-proprietor service plumber in two small towns north of Phoenix Arizona for 26 years.
Publications I had a monthly column in the United Steelworkers of America, local 1033, newsletter 1978 to 1982. I wrote an article for "The Theosophist" in 1977. I've written dozens of letters to the editor in many newspapers.
Education/Credentials High school and three years of college. My step-father, having worked 40 years in the plumbing trade in Chicago, taught me for two years. The rest has been hands-on experience.
Past/Present Clients Many hundreds of good people in Cave Creek and Carefree Arizona
Question I usually have toilets and bathtub, and shower back up. Roto Rooter has come three times. Now kitchen sink and laundry room drains are filling up. Single story house about 40 years old. What is diagram to send snake? Any advice? No known breakage in the pipes.
Answer Dear Janie,
If you have a 40 year-old house, you may have galvanized drain pipes. Most houses around 40 years and older were built before ABS plastic pipe was widely used by plumbers.
ABS was a huge improvement. It's not only much easier and faster to run, and cheaper, it's better because the plastic doesn't corrode like galvanized, and the pipes stay relatively clean for many years.
I recently helped a friend of mine, her bathroom sink wouldn't drain. I checked the pop-up, the trap and the pipe to the wall, which were all plastic, and all clean. Then I discovered the pipe going into the wall was galvanized. Her house is about 40 years old as well.
The corrosion, rust, and the debris that collected inside that pipe had completely blocked it right there at the opening. I don't have my small electric rooter now so I told her to call a trusted plumber friend. He ran his electric auger through about 8 feet to where the pipe teed into the toilet line.
After a few years, the zinc coating on galvanized wears off and the metal begins to rust and corrode. The particles going down the drains tend to stick to this mess and the pipes close up more and more.
Even plastic pipes can accumulate a build-up after 40 years. Consider the stuff that goes down a kitchen or bathroom drain over such a long period of time. Even if everyone is careful, grease and food particles slip down a kitchen line.
Grease is sticky. Even if you run hot water, the grease will cool as it goes down, and it begins sticking to the inside walls of the pipes. Then food particles stick to that and so on and so on for 40 years.
If your laundry room drainline tees into the kitchen drainline on it's way to the next larger pipe, they will both back up if the blockage is pretty far down, past the laundry. Using a wire or hand auger probably won't help. The best thing to do is have someone run an electric cable all the way to the end and ream all that crud out of the pipes.
Regarding the other work you've had done, do you know what the plumber found in the sewer pipe? If you have roots growing in, they will keep coming back. You can put root-killer down the drain, which is copper sulphate crystals in a bottle, but this chemical can only retard the growth for a while, the roots are incredibly persistent.
Also it only works right after the roots have been removed. The copper sulphate can't eliminate the roots, it will only slow their growth back into the pipe. If you do have a root problem, it might be more practical in the long run to have the pipe replaced.
If the roots are only coming in at one section of the pipe you can have a repair done right there. If the whole pipe seems bad, have it all replaced, either to the septic tank or the sewer connection. Otherwise you'll be paying Roto-rooter time after time after time. And worrying and cleaning up the mess as well.
