I just paid $525 flat rate to get my sewer drain unclogged. I could have it done myself, but $525 educational purpose is good, next time I know where to snake it, outside, not inside. Turns out the clog was far outside the house and I tried to unclog it from inside the house out but I don’t think it ever reached outside to the clog or maybe it did reached but keep on pushing out never reached.
So I called emergency service and they came within an hour and spend like 5 minutes to unclog, however total time about 15 minutes because they have to move the equipment off and on to the van, plus mileage I guess, he drove for 30 minutes at least, one way.
So to me the $525 was a tuition fee for me to learn how to unclog or rather where to snake it next time. I already have snake equipments from $20 to $50 to $500 equipments but all this time I’ve been snaking it inside the house and was able to clear everything, until one day and it was earlier today that the clog was outside yard house with two pipes popping up one taller than the other with vent and the other pipe capped. The capper pipe with big screw square nut appears to be city bypass, whatever that mean, and the other pipe taller than the city bypass was the vent for air to breath in out.
So when the plumber came and I told him the main drain outside clog, he immediate took a look at the vent pipe down and noticed sitting water in the pipe, you can tell by reflection of your flash light light knowing water sitting down there. Most of the time, that pipe should be clear to dry when not in use, meaning no water usage and the drain should have been cleared, so we know it clogged from going outside to the city sewer pipe. So he simply put in the snake and changing different head and within 5 minutes it cleared, I flushed the toilet and kept water running for few minutes and no more clog.
So what I’ve learned is to when there’s a clog, check to see where, and then determine where to stick the snake to unclog. In this case look at the vent pipe outside, sometime there’s a sewer drain clean out, this is where I should have look. Also when you unclog it, pull the snake out a few times to see if there are any corrosion or trees roots or anything that could have damage the pipe, toilet paper poop and paper towel hair are normal, make sure no tree roots or dirt corrosion.
I would like to thanks the plumber who was honest with me and show me the right way I got some good education and he got good pay $525 for 5 minutes job excluding the driving the equipment up down his van that is 🙂