About speedball1 Expertise About me: My Plumbing Expertise: I retired from plumbing after a lifetime in the trade. all phases from service and upkeep to construction, both residential and commercial. I am qualified to do anything in plumbing from fixing a leaky faucet to drafting a set of plans for a commercial shopping center and supervising the construction. My last five years were spent as a trouble shooter for a large plumbing company. I took on all my companys complaints. I have been a expert on the plumbing page at Askme.com. In a field of 200 experts my rating was number one. You may also find me at Answerway.com and AskMe Help Desk.com. This is fun for me and if I can help anybody out that`s iceing on the cake. Degrees & Certifications: As for degrees, I don`t have any. Just a Journeymans ticket, but hey! How about fifty years experience?
Experience Life Experience? Hmmmmmmm! Ran away at 15 and joined a carnival, Navy at 17 Merchant marine at 19 I've had a hellava life.
Question I have a kitchen sink that backs up whenever I use my disposal or dishwasher. Some facts about my sink: two basin, with adisposal on the left. I have recently had the joint where the disposal joins the sink drain (I believe it is called a baffle T joint) replaced by a professional. Before the pro did his work, there was seepage leak where the u-joint attaches to the T-joint.
Last night, I removed the U-joint (aka p-trap?), and it was clean. Frankly, to the untrained eye, it seems like its a simple case of too much water trying to go down too little drain. Is there anything I can do, like maybe a longer u-joint, or some kind of "catch basin" for the drain? Any help would be appreciated.
Answer Hey Phill, Most of the complaints I get about kitchen sink back-ups can be traced back to the lateral, (the horzontal pipe in the wall) that runs into the kitchen vent stack especially with a disposal and a dishwasher inserting all sorts of combinations of grease and garbage in it. As the debris builds up the opening closes up so that while it will accept a sink that drains but it will back up when faced with a disposal and dish washer both acting as pumps. More volume + more pressure + partical blockage = back ups. To fix this problem the "J" bend of the trap must be removed and a snake ran up the tail of the trap going into the wall. A few inches inside the wall you'll hit a elbo but once you work around that you only have to put out 4 or 5 feet more of snake before you come to the drainage tee and the vertical vent. Once the lateral's cleared your troubles will be over. Hope this helped and thank you for rating my reply. Tom
