Evan!
Well-Known Member
The night before last, I was doing a load of laundry, and when it discharged the wastewater, it started coming up through the floor drain in the laundry room. Then...the water wasn't really draining at all. I tried snaking the floor drain with my 25 ft pipe snake, no dice. I opened up the cleanout on the main waste stack, and the liquid line was standing at about slab level...so I tried snaking that too. Still nothing. So I called roto-rooter and they came out yesterday. He brought out his motorized 150 foot auger and after a little while, he finally got the clog undone...but he said it felt rough all along it. So, he got out the pipe cam and we had a look. The first 10 feet were fine...cast iron. Then, abruptly, it changed to this stuff that he called "orangeburg" or something like that, which is apparently rolled and cured tar paper. It was supposed to last a long time, but they discovered that after awhile, the hot water running along the bottom of it makes it bubble up.
So we looked further, and it's all blistering up, very nasty, and very likely to clog up again. Then we got out the camera locator and walked around the yard trying to see where the line was...it goes straight out back to a manhole in my neighbor's yard. The roto-rooter guy said that it obviously needs to be replaced, and that they could do it for $4500. It doesn't involve trenching, though...what they do is dig a hole where my cast iron ends, then dig a hole just before the manhole, and push this heavy duty rubber piping through, with a big cone blade on the front which essentially displaces the old pipe as it goes along and pulls the new pipe through with a cable and hydraulics. He also said they'd refund half the cost of coming out yesterday ($250/2=$125), and while they were waiting for the line to go through, he would take care of another plumbing issue in my laundry room (the waste water from the washing machine backs up into the utility sink) for free.
SO, does anyone know anything about this new magic underground replacement stuff, and if so, is this a good price for the service? We're looking at about 100 feet from where the cast iron ends to the manhole.
Thanks!
So we looked further, and it's all blistering up, very nasty, and very likely to clog up again. Then we got out the camera locator and walked around the yard trying to see where the line was...it goes straight out back to a manhole in my neighbor's yard. The roto-rooter guy said that it obviously needs to be replaced, and that they could do it for $4500. It doesn't involve trenching, though...what they do is dig a hole where my cast iron ends, then dig a hole just before the manhole, and push this heavy duty rubber piping through, with a big cone blade on the front which essentially displaces the old pipe as it goes along and pulls the new pipe through with a cable and hydraulics. He also said they'd refund half the cost of coming out yesterday ($250/2=$125), and while they were waiting for the line to go through, he would take care of another plumbing issue in my laundry room (the waste water from the washing machine backs up into the utility sink) for free.
SO, does anyone know anything about this new magic underground replacement stuff, and if so, is this a good price for the service? We're looking at about 100 feet from where the cast iron ends to the manhole.
Thanks!