Roto-rooter

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tamada
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Roto-rooter

Post by tamada » July 1, 2018, 2:14 pm

The kitchen drain has clogged up, I suspect congealed fat and food scraps from the pots, pans and plate washing as well as rubber bands, bits of plastic and other stuff from food prep. I have a plan to replace the existing, undersized 2" pvc pipe with something bigger all the way to the outlet but in the short term, I am looking for solutions to getting it unclogged now.

I read about the hot water, vinegar and caustic soda solutions but wondering if anyone has seen a 'snake' or similar in local hardware stores. Are any of the local, bottled pipe clearing products recommended without melting the pipe? I am only looking at probably 6' to 8' of pipe where the blockage lies with reasonable access from the outlet end and the usual 'under the sink' restrictions from the top side.

Ta
tam



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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by dunroaming » July 1, 2018, 2:56 pm

Homepro have drain rods

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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by FrazeeDK » July 1, 2018, 2:59 pm

we've had a few pipe clogs over the years. We usually call our "Soop Suam" septic poop sucking truck.. they usually have a variety of tools to clear clogs plus that 3 inch vacuum hose.. They're experts in making things go down the drain smoothly.. You usually see them driving through the neighborhoods or likely somebody nearby has a cell number for one of them.
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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by FrazeeDK » July 1, 2018, 3:00 pm

geez, s e p t i c is verboten???
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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by fdimike » July 1, 2018, 8:00 pm

I bought a "plumbers snake" at Tool Pro Plus
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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by tamada » July 1, 2018, 8:05 pm

dunroaming wrote:
July 1, 2018, 2:56 pm
Homepro have drain rods
Which I was pleasantly surprised to see!

Being a frugal Jockinese, I pondered the length of the plumbing and settled on the 199 baht, 5 m drain rod. After a couple of hours roto-rooting about, I reckon I should have bought the longer one! Managed to shift loads of congealed fat and mysterious white stuff with the texture of ricotta cheese but I reckon there's still a big blob around 5.1 m in.

I also managed to clean and test the waste disposal that was installed a dozen years ago and looked rusted shut. Once I got the noodles and ricotta flushed out, it's humming like a bought one.

Oh well, at least I know what I'l be doing manana.

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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by tamada » July 1, 2018, 8:11 pm

FrazeeDK wrote:
July 1, 2018, 2:59 pm
we've had a few pipe clogs over the years. We usually call our "Soop Suam" ##### poop sucking truck.. they usually have a variety of tools to clear clogs plus that 3 inch vacuum hose.. They're experts in making things go down the drain smoothly.. You usually see them driving through the neighborhoods or likely somebody nearby has a cell number for one of them.
Good idea if I fail with the longer rod. The tanks probably need emptying and we have their stickers with phone numbers on the gate post so they will be plan B.

I was thinking how handy a short, flexible coupling would be on my regular pressure washer to connect the flexible high-pressure hose directly to the power head in lieu of the usual long, rigid extensions. Since my blockage is probably where the 4" external drain pipe elbows/couples with the 2" internal drain plumbing, giving that a jet blast from the outside would probably do the trick. Maybe a google search is called for.

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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by tamada » July 1, 2018, 8:13 pm

fdimike wrote:
July 1, 2018, 8:00 pm
I bought a "plumbers snake" at Tool Pro Plus
How long is it and do you remember how much? I think the longer, (at least) 10 m drain rod at HomePro is 299 baht.

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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by fdimike » July 1, 2018, 8:41 pm

The one I bought is a flexible "snake" which you can attach to an electric drill. i believe it's about 5m in length. this is something you would use to clear the clog in a sink or some other indoor plumbing. I don't recall the price. it sounds like you need to add some active bacteria into your drains on a regular basis to dissolve the grease and sludge.
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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by Hoopoe » July 2, 2018, 7:25 am

I have the 5mm flexi snake ,but it doesn't reach around bends at length , ( eg, already extended out 3 metre's) can't get it to go around the bends , So I just pour boiling water down, several times , ( at the nearest entry point to the blockage) this has always worked ,telling the wife & Kids to satop putting waste /especially the water from cooked rice ( the white globs mentioned is an accumilation of this with fats , ) is a waste of time , But Getting the sink hole filters ( tesco lotus )cheap as chips ,greatly reduces this problem ,i've not had a problem for some time ,

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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by fdimike » July 2, 2018, 8:31 am

Have you thought about installing a grease trap between the sink and the outside of the house. We had one installed just outside the house when we built the house and it dumps into a 5,000L septic tank. The grease trap traps all the food bits, rubber bands etc in a screen basket for removal and the liquids continue into the septic tank where it's disposed of by bacteria before being dumped into the outside drains.
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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by tamada » July 2, 2018, 12:37 pm

Thanks for all the tips. The house was originally built with hot and cold water in the kitchen sink as I cannot stand cold-washed greasy plates stacked after they've been 'washed'. But after we moved out about 10 years ago, everything was typically allowed to slowly fall apart, break, block up without any effort to sort things out before they got worse. We moved back and with a full house, the already compromised 'systems' are rapidly cratering with all the extra occupants cooking, eating, washing etc..

I may divert my attention to see if the wall-mounted kitchen water heater is still any good but I reckon that's probably a short-circuit in a rusted out tank since I doubt it was drained when someone decided to remove the split-type faucet and chop off the lines. But if the heater works, I have a ready supply of hot water and it will also keep things flowing once it's sorted. Split type faucets are also more plentiful locally rather than the expensive imported one I bought all those years ago... that they broke, chopped off and threw away.

Looking out the back, some more sludge and congealed fat has emerged overnight from the open washing machine drain so things are getting dislodged albeit slowly after maybe a dozen kettles of boiling water an two yellow bottles of Farcent drain unblocker. The washing machine hose has been pulled out of its drain temporarily. I now have water flowing from the wet bar sink to the 4" drain so just the blockage between the kitchen sink/washing machine outlet to the main drain to clear.

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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by tamada » July 2, 2018, 12:39 pm

fdimike wrote:
July 2, 2018, 8:31 am
Have you thought about installing a grease trap between the sink and the outside of the house. We had one installed just outside the house when we built the house and it dumps into a 5,000L ##### tank. The grease trap traps all the food bits, rubber bands etc in a screen basket for removal and the liquids continue into the ##### tank where it's disposed of by bacteria before being dumped into the outside drains.
Sounds like a job for the 'too busy' bro in law. He's in construction and with the late father in law, built this mansion so he vaguely remembers where the pipes and wires went.

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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by fdimike » July 2, 2018, 1:36 pm

I feel for you Tam. The locals will just make do rather than fix something correctly. It's all too much trouble for them. We installed a central hot water tank in our house to get hot water to all the sinks when we built. Then installed composite plastic hot & cold water lines throughout the house to deliver the water. That's worked very well for us over the past 13 years. Heck when we built trying to find a "P trap" for under the sinks and floor drains was like looking for hens teeth.
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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by Nigglyb » July 2, 2018, 6:31 pm

Bicarbonate Soda/ Baking Soda & white vinegar is great for unclogging fatty drains
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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by parrot » July 4, 2018, 12:46 pm


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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by tamada » July 6, 2018, 9:45 am

parrot wrote:
July 4, 2018, 12:46 pm
post516456.html#p516456
Good find there parrot.

Now I have a Plan B !!!

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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by tamada » July 15, 2018, 12:50 pm

tamada wrote:
July 1, 2018, 8:11 pm

I was thinking how handy a short, flexible coupling would be on my regular pressure washer to connect the flexible high-pressure hose directly to the power head in lieu of the usual long, rigid extensions. Since my blockage is probably where the 4" external drain pipe elbows/couples with the 2" internal drain plumbing, giving that a jet blast from the outside would probably do the trick. Maybe a google search is called for.
Within a few minutes of googling, I found a youtube of the drain unblocker for Karcher pressure washers. Further research found them on amazon and generic ones on lazada (from China).

The day after I finished unblocking, I found Thai Watsadu on the ring road has a 10 m high pressure drain unblocker hose for Zinsano brand pressure washers in stock (they weren't there 5 days earlier) so have invested in one for the next time.

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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by colt1911 » July 16, 2018, 1:20 pm

Thanks Tamada for the tip. Just a week ago was using a good old plunger. I have a Zinsano brand pressure washer. The Unblocker will great next time around. Thai Watsadu on the ring road has a few more in stock.
Regards

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Re: Roto-rooter

Post by Potamoi » August 29, 2022, 12:52 am

Have a slow toilet in the guest washroom. After fighting it for a month or so, the original builder was over today to repair that and another water leak just under the shower floor and wall in the other WC which is back to back with this one.

Once he removed the toilet (broke it while removing it of course) we could see:

A) He did a crappy job installing it in 2009. Cemented in place, no wax ring, square hole in the tile under the commode, 4" drain pipe offset a bit and not a very sound way to connect that to the toilet in my untrained mind.

B) Tree roots growing in the PVC drain

He buggered around with my heavy duty manual toilet snake, similar to the photo, modified a paint stirring attachment for his drill and let one of his guys make a half hearted effort to clear some of the roots.
ToiletSnake.jpg
ToiletSnake.jpg (8.68 KiB) Viewed 1272 times
Meanwhile the other job repairing a cold water leak below the shower in the other wash room took precedent since it could be completed in one day. Got the water leak fixed (saw roots down there too BTW).

My questions are these:
1) Does anyone know of a decent plumber that can manage this kind of job? My guy is a general builder and not great at plumbing.
2) Do any UM'ers know of where I can get a heavy duty rooter type of root cutter, auger or drill attachment?

I feel like I may have seen a Rigid power snake at Global a few years back but don't recall if it came with the cutting attachments or just a spring snake.

Ideas welcome. My builder is back again tomorrow am after he thinks overnight on what to do so I am preparing some other ideas. I do have the drain cleaning pressure washer hose but its not really very stiff for this job.
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