by Carey, James
For sinks with garbage disposals, you can also try this trick:
1. Fill an ice-cube tray half-full with vinegar and top it off with clear water.
Vinegar alone won’t freeze well. Be sure to mark the tray clearly — you wouldn’t want an unsuspecting family member to end up with a mouthful of vinegar. Can you imagine how that martini would taste?
2. Turn the disposal on and then throw in the cubes.
Vinegar is a mild acid that cleans the disposal and the drain while the ice literally chills and scrapes grease off its walls (see Figure 9-2).
If you don’t like the smell of vinegar, you can chase the cubes with one sliced lemon. Your disposal and your kitchen will smell great!
Figure 9-2: Cleaning your disposal with ice and vinegar.
A word about commercial drain cleaners
Lye is the active ingredient in most popular store-bought drain cleaners. It dissolves soap scum and hair in a heartbeat. All you have to do is pour some down the drain, chase with a small amount of water, and wait for the chemical to do its job.
Small amounts of lye are reasonably safe. But too much of a good thing could suddenly turn nasty. Strong drain cleaners aren’t safe when used in large quantities. Make sure to follow the directions on the label to the letter.
Unclogging the Waste Lines
The clean-out system in your sewer provides access to the waste lines for easy cleaning, which can save you hundreds of dollars in plumber’s bills. A clean-out is a port with a removable cap that provides access to the inside of the sewer line.
So where are your clean-outs? The National Plumbing Code requires clean-outs to be placed in your waste lines at least every 100 linear feet of horizontal travel. Clean-outs must be even closer together when the total angle of all bends in the horizontal sections of line exceed 135 degrees.
The tell-tale sign of a clean-out is its cap. It’s a flat, threaded disk fitted with a hexagonal protrusion at its center, which allows it to be easily removed (or replaced) with a wrench or a pair of pliers.
Clean-outs can be found under sinks, sticking out of exterior walls, and randomly in the area beneath the floor — but not buried below the soil. When you know where all your clean-outs are, you can use that knowledge to keep your sewer clean on your own. And you can give your plumber a rest — at home, not in Tahiti with your money!
To clear a clog through the clean-outs, follow these steps:
1. Using a wrench or pair of pliers, remove the clean-out cover.
2. Use a plumber’s auger, or “snake,” to clear a clog at the first sign of a drainage problem (see Figure 9-3).
Most good do-it-yourselfers own a small version of a plumber’s auger. Not only is a small auger inexpensive, but it’s easy to store as well. (See Chapter 8 for information about snakes that are made especially for clearing toilet clogs.)
Figure 9-3: Using a plumber’s auger or a snake to clear a line.
Keeping Vents Free from Debris
When a sink isn’t draining properly, and the waste line isn’t clogged, you may need to take a look upward to find the culprit — up toward the vent system. You know, the black plumbing pipes that stick up out of your roof. When a vent becomes clogged, it shows up within the home as everything from “ghost flushes” at the toilet to sinks that simply won’t drain properly.
One or more of the following can collect in a vent line and completely clog it. Here are a few things that we’ve found:
Birds (usually deceased, but sometimes nesting)
Rodent carcasses (once we found just the skeleton)
Leaves, trash, and other rubbish, which are sometimes almost impossible to remove
Tennis balls and baseballs (we’re still waiting for our first water balloon)
Because clearing vent-pipe blockages can be a real pain in the you-know-what, we suggest that you take the preventive steps. You won’t be sorry.
Getting rid of blockages
Unfortunately, the best place to clear a blockage in a vent pipe is from the roof.
Working up on the roof can be a dangerous task, to say the least. So, you may want to have this job done by someone who has experience working up high. If you feel confident about performing the work yourself, be sure that the roof is dry, wear rubber-soled shoes, and use a safety harness to prevent yourself from falling off the roof if you slip. (See Chapter 5 for more tips on working on the roof.)
Dealing with clogs
You’ll need a flashlight, a plumber’s snake, and a garden hose. Use the flashlight to shine a bright light down the vent pipe to look for leaves, nesting materials, or other debris you may be able to remove from above. Then try the following:
Remove any items you can reach. For those items you can’t remove from above, run the plumber’s snake down the vent pipe.
Feed the end of a garden hose down the vent pipe and have someone on the ground turn on the water. Listen carefully for water backing up and a sudden whoosh when the weight of the water forces the clog into and down the drain.
You can also feed the hose down into the vent pipe as you would a plumber’s snake to dislodge a clog that’s not solid enough to dam water.
Dealing with frozen plumbing
Blockages caused by frozen plumbing vents can be a problem for homes located in extremely cold climates. The best way to clear a frozen vent is by pouring really hot water into the vent pipe. But climbing up a ladder with a bucket of hot water can be dangerous. A simpler way of doing this is to connect a rubber hose — rated for use with hot water — to the hot-water spigot at your washing machine. Works every time!
Putting preventive measures in place
One of the most effective means of preventing plumbing-vent pipe blockages is with the use of vent pipe screens. These nifty devices fit snugly onto the top of vent pipes and prevent blockages from animals, bugs/insects, and debris such as leaves. You can find these screens at hardware stores, home centers, plumbing wholesalers, and online.
Is your ghost flush friendly?
About five years ago, we were on the air doing our radio show. A caller phoned in with a most unusual question. “My toilet flushes all by itself,” she said. She went on to explain that no one was near the toilet when it flushed. It did it all by itself. “Do I have ghosts,” she asked? Naturally, we decided to run with it. We excitedly told her that Casper the Friendly Ghost was on a toilet-flushing rampage and, well, you can probably figure out the rest.
After a few minutes of horsing around, we returned to serious diagnosing. The flush that our caller described was not a conventional one. The flush-lever never moved — not once. And water wasn’t released from the tank. Each time, the tank remained full and undisturbed. But the toilet was flushing. Every once in a while, the water in the bottom of the toilet bowl would simply be sucked right down the drain! Fllluuuusssshhh!
As we continued to diagnose, we found out that each time that the toilet had flushed, someone was taking a shower. We surmised that the shower and toilet were connected to the same vent pipe (often, two or more plumbing fixtures are connected to a single vent pipe) and that the vent had clogged.
When the shower drained, the water moving down the sewer line acted like a piston, causing suction. Apparently, air could not be drawn in from the clogged vent to offset the increasing negative pressure, so the next best place — the toilet — became the ventilation intake port. Casper had nothing to do with it.
Preventing a frozen vent can be a bit trickier. In general, the easiest way to prevent a vent pipe from freezing is by increasing the size of the vent by two to three times the diameter where the pipe travels vertically in the attic. The added volume of air makes freezing more difficult.
An alternative is to install a vent pipe that has a built-in heater, such as the ArticVent by Heat-Line (www.heatline.com). It’s a heat tape for your eaves, gutters, and pipes, except the heating element is built in to the vent pipe. You simply remove about 3 feet of the uppermost portion of vent pipe, ins
tall the ArticVent, and plug it into an electrical outlet in the attic. Not a bad alternative if you live in a really cold climate and frozen vents are a recurring problem.
Avoiding Problems with P-Traps
The p-trap is that strangely curved pipe that you see beneath any sink in your home. Actually, a p-trap can be found at every single plumbing fixture — whether you can see it or not. If you can’t see it, you can be sure it’s either inside the fixture (as it is with toilets), beneath the floor (in the case of showers and tubs), or inside the wall (for washing-machine drains).
The name of this special piece of drain comes from the letter of the alphabet that it resembles, and also from the fact that it actually traps water. Essentially, the trap holds enough water in its curved base to act as a “water door,” preventing unpleasant waste and sewer gases from backing up into the home.
Unfortunately, the trap’s water-trapping ability extends to hair, grease, debris, and soap scum. This makes a p-trap the number-one location of clogs in the sewer system. If the p-trap becomes only slightly clogged, then you experience slow drainage in the fixture. Oh, you say the toilet is the place where all the clogs occur at your house. The toilet has the largest p-trap of any fixture in the home. Had to pull any toys out of yours lately?
You can prevent drain clogs by being careful about what you put in the drain and by performing monthly preventive cleaning, as explained in the earlier section “Keeping Your System Clog-Free.” But if these measures don’t work and you experience slow draining in your fixture, try cleaning the p-trap to avoid a full-blown blockage. You need:
1 small plastic bucket
1 rag
1 large pair of pliers or a pipe wrench
1 portable light
Before beginning, remove everything from under the sink so that you have ample room to work. Then follow these steps:
1. Position the plastic bucket directly under the p-trap.
2. Using the pliers, remove the two coupling nuts that attach the trap to the sink tailpiece and to the adjacent wall fitting.
If these nuts won’t budge, or if they simply fall apart when you try to move them, it’s time to purchase a replacement trap.
3. Clean the interior of the trap with a straightened wire coat hanger or a large nylon bottle brush.
Make sure that all the parts are completely clean inside and out. A piece of debris lodged between a drain washer and the drainpipe can cause a leak.
Use the cleaning as an opportunity to inspect all the washers — they should be soft and supple. (Don’t you just love that description? Go to the hardware store or home center and ask for “soft, supple drain washers.”) If they aren’t soft, you need to replace them.
4. If you discover that the trap is clean and clear (and not the reason for the clog or slow draining), then insert a small retractable drain snake directly into the drain or, if the p-trap has been removed, directly into the pipe in the wall.
Work the snake in and out while rotating the handle clockwise.
5. Reassemble the trap.
Make sure that each washer is properly seated. Twisting can be a real problem. Don’t over-tighten the connections. At first, the coupling nuts should be no more than hand-tight. If a leak persists, continue to tighten a little at a time until the leak disappears. If increased tightening doesn’t do the trick, chances are, the washers are dirty, twisted, or defective. Try again!
If cleaning doesn’t solve your p-trap problems, pick up the telephone and call a plumber or sewer-and-drain specialist who has the expertise and proper tools to get things flowing freely.
If all the drains in the home are running slowly, the main sewer line may be the problem. Skip all these steps and go straight to the plumber.
Your Sewer System’s Fall
If you repeatedly have drainage problems, and you’ve determined that all waste lines, vents, and p-traps are clean and clear, then the fall (the downward slope of the pipes), or actually the lack of fall, could be the problem.
One thing you don’t want is a sewer system that looks like a set of roller-coaster tracks — up and down, up and down. Sewers work best when the waste lines slope downhill. In fact, they don’t really work very well at all otherwise.
The National Plumbing Code requires sewer lines to fall (slope downward) at a rate of 1/8 inch per foot (which equals 1 inch every 8 feet). We think the minimum should be twice as much. There is no maximum fall — the more the better.
If fall is an issue, call a plumber to correct the problem. We don’t recommend major sewer work as a DIY project.
Maintaining Your Septic System
If you live in a rural area or have vacation property in the middle of nowhere, you’re no doubt familiar with the form and function of a septic system (see Figure 9-4). In brief, a septic system is your very own onsite sewage treatment facility. It’s used primarily where access to a municipal sewer system is neither available nor economically practical. A septic system is out of sight and is odorless (when properly maintained).
A septic system is reasonably maintenance-free. A well-constructed, properly maintained tank could last indefinitely. However, the leach field (the underground area where all of the sewage drainpipes are located) will most likely require some treatment or perhaps replacement after about 15 to 20 years of service.
Following a few simple rules — like not using too much water and not depositing materials in the septic tank that bacteria can’t decompose — should help to make a septic system trouble-free for many years. But don’t forget that the septic tank does need to be cleaned out when too many solids build up.
Figure 9-4: Parts of the septic system.
Being careful about what goes in
Be mindful about what you and your family put into your septic system. It doesn’t take much to upset the delicate biological balance within the tank. You can extend the life of a septic system by watching everything that’s introduced to the system.
Keep in mind the following recommendations:
Too much water can upset the delicate biological balance within the tank, thus defeating its ability to work wonders. Moreover, discharging more water into the system than it can handle can cause it to back up — not a desirable occurrence.
Don’t use excessive amounts of any household chemicals. You can use normal amounts of household detergents, bleaches, drain cleaners, and other household chemicals without stopping the bacterial action in the septic tank. But, for example, don’t dump cleaning water for latex paintbrushes and cans into the house sewer.
Don’t deposit coffee grounds, cooking fats, wet-strength towels (paper towels that don’t dissolve easily, like the heavy-duty kind), disposable diapers, facial tissues, cigarette butts, and other non-decomposable materials into the house sewer. These materials won’t decompose, will fill the septic tank, and will plug the system.
Use a high-quality toilet tissue that breaks up easily when wet. One way to find out if your toilet paper fits this description is to put a handful of toilet tissue in a fruit jar half-full of water. Shake the jar, and if the tissue breaks up easily, the product is suitable for the septic tank.
Avoid dumping grease down the drain. It may plug sewer pipes or build up in the septic tank and plug the inlet. Keep a separate container for waste grease and throw it out with the garbage.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, because of the presence of significant numbers and types of bacteria, enzymes, yeasts, and other fungi and microorganisms in typical residential and commercial wastewaters, the use of septic-system additives containing these or any other ingredients is not recommended.
Cleaning and pumping your septic tank
You need to have your septic tank pumped and cleaned by a professional every one to three years. A septic tank in a northern climate will need to have the solids removed more often than a tank farther south. (This geographic variance is primarily because cooler temperatures inhibit bacterial action and provide less decomposition of
the sewage solids.) How often you need to have your septic tank pumped also depends on the size of the tank, the volume of wastewater, and how many solids go into it. Constant foul odor, slow drains, and drains that back up are all telltale signs that your septic tank needs pumping. When in doubt, call in a septic pro.