Is It My FAULT?

[Charley L. Bottger]

Originally Posted by bclark

I think it was the old 1 1/2" Dia. But my question is would the drain lines from the other utilities (tub, shower, toilet, and sink) be seperat from the drain line of the washer. Or would they all tie into one 4" cst iron waste line.

All of the separate drains will at some point tie into a common drain before it leaves the foundation. Are we talking slab foundation here. Depending on the foot print of the home you may have 10 or 20 feet or even more of the washing machine drain as a separate drain before it connects into the main. Lets say the kitchen and utility room are in one end of the home and the bathrooms are in the opposite end. The main sewer line will normally exit the foundation in the area of the bathroom or Bathrooms plural and all other drains travel toward the main exit. Depending on the foot print the washing machine and the kitchen sink can Wye together and then just one line toward the main.

I am just speculating here as I don't have a clue as to how your home is laid out. I am just generalizing how a lot of homes are laid out here in Okla.

If you discharged a sufficient amount of water down the drains for an extended amount of time and are sure the main was flowing I would tend to believe that the washing machine drain if 1 1/2 diameter was partially blocked with soap scum or some other restriction in the line.

If you only discharge enough water to check the leaks on the P-traps and flushed the commodes a couple of times that is not enough water to fill a 4 inch cast iron drain line that has any length. It takes several hundred gallons to fill most of these drains. How far from the foundation to the city drop are these yards short say less than 50 feet.

I got burnt once on a sewer main that ran over a hundred feet from the foundation to the city drop I use to only run water for about 1/2 hour until this happened and I vowed to never let it happen twice I increased my time to 1 hour or more. The subject home had been vacant for a year and the inside of the sewer line dried out forming a scale that just kind of hung on the interior of the pipe. Then along comes me and start running water down the drain knocking this scale off in massive amounts it all collected at the city drop for some reason blocking the line. I stopped running water just before it backup. The buyer moves in and the first flush on the commode runs onto the floor Woe is me I got the call immediately. If I had just ran that water two more minutes I would have detected the problem. The moral of this story is I don't turn the water off any to soon now. My protocol is now the last thing I do before leaving the home turn the water off and give the commodes a last and final flush??? End of inspection.

Give me your floor plan, how big the yard to determine how far to the city drop and where the tree roots are suppose to have been discovered. How much water you ran down the drains. Your question can be deciphered right here on this board. (maybe)