Help from a plumber...

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cmonkey
Posts: 1814
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 11:56 am

Help from a plumber...

Post by cmonkey »

For those that don't follow my journal, I have been finishing my basement. I have now ran into a potentially show-stopping problem!

When we took the old toilet off the sewer drain I just shoved an old rag in it and never looked down the pipe. Tonight I took the rag off to wipe up some water on the floor and happened to glance down the drain. It was filled to within 2 inches of the top with really black, moist soil and about 4-6 small red worms! Also some thrips. It looked and smelled exactly like fresh compost, nothing nasty at all. I poured some water down and it didn't drain. So I took a long piece of pex pipe and shoved it down the drain and eventually worked ALL of the soil out by running a heavy stream of water down the drain while thrashing the pex pipe around down the pipe.

It's currently cleaned out except there is about 1/2 inch of water that doesn't drain out. I can pour a 5 gallon bucket down and it drains perfectly, no backups. The drain goes down about 6 inches and then turns to run directly under the concrete for about 5 feet before going to the main drain. So either there is more dirt caked down the pipe somewhere or the pipe is snapped. :cry:

A little history on the drain - it's been sitting without a toilet for about 5.5 months now. Before that it sat for the past 5 years without being flushed even once. It wasn't even hooked up to plumbing. I poured water down a few times to keep the trap filled. So there has been ZERO movement through the pipe for at least 5 years. Probably longer given how nasty it was in our basement.

Beyond the obvious possibility (broken/snapped sewer line) what other explanations might there be?? How can earthworms and soil get into an inactive sewer line?

The only thing I can think of is that that black soil is actually 5+ years of humanure that has sat in the pipe and those worms are actually tubifex/sewer worms, not earthworms. They look similar. Every time we flush water down the main line, it somehow gets into the side line and keeps the worms fed/moist and they have worked it all into a fine tilth. This kinda makes sense because the soil under our house is super thick, tan clay. This stuff was blacker than coffee. Completely different.

I am going to get a plumber in next week to stick a video camera down there but just wanted any insight from any plumbers out there in the mean time.

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