I live in a 100+ year old house in San Francisco. The upstairs drains (shower and bathroom sink) tend to drain slowly, especially the shower. Draino seems to help somewhat, but not entirely.
I read somewhere that old houses tend to have slow pipes. Is this true? What causes it and what can I do about it? Thanks in advance for your help.
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Replies
Almost certainly, the pipes are so full of rust and mineral deposits that if you could look through one you'd see a little convoluted path for the wastewater to trickle through. Add in 100 years of tallow, grease and hair (nice though, huh?), and you can see the problem.
Without using some mechanical means, some of the bacteria-based drain cleaners may work a touch better then Drano. They deposit little cooties in the pipes that grow more cooties, all of them eating the above-mentioned recipe.
In my mother's 70 year old house, she paid several hundred dollars to have a Roto-Rooter type guy ream out all of the drain lines. The results were excellent. That may work in your case, or the system could be too far gone even for that. The sad truth is that at some point, the drains only respond to being torn out and replace.
Renting?? Have a nice, sympathetic landlord? Give him (her) a demo of your problem.
Most definatly have the drain lines snaked out for starters....YOu might also look into venting the drains which I bet arent....vented.
Be well
NAmaste
AndyIt's not who's right, it's who's left ~ http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
In my limited experience..., if the pipes have any horizontal runs that's where you're going to find the clogs. Maybe that shower and sink both have a short horizontal run to the same stack, clear after that. Last year I found just such a situation. There was less than a 1/4" openning through the pipes.
Rich Beckman
Check to see if the shower has a drum type trap, which was typical in old homes. It is a small can with a lid that screws on. If it gets clogged with hair, soap scum etc. it will cause slow, and then no, draining and chemical cleaners are not effective. If you can get access, the lid can be removed (difficult) and the drum sucked dry with a shop vac. Then reach in with gloves on and make sure the pipes coming in and out of the drum aren't plugged. I recently did this at my house and have had no further problems. The hardest part was getting the lid off, which has a large nut or plug like a cleanout plug. I used a large socket wrench because there was not enough room for a pipe wrench.
I had the same problem in the same age house - took a sawsall and new ABS to fix the problem. I tried the poormans snake - coat hanger- and managed to poke a hole in the pipe - that's when the sawsall came out. gook lots of gook.
I like the "cootie" idea, I wish I'd have known about it before I replaced my cast iron plumbing with ABS. You don't appreciate the quietness of cast untill you hear the thunder of plastic. I wanted to shoot myself everytime someone flushed the toilet. It was a beautiful house, I grew to hate it, my health began to fail, I wasn't getting any sleep, my wife left me.
Its too late for me now, but it doesn't have to be that way for you
-------------"I wanted to shoot myself everytime someone flushed the toilet. It was a beautiful house, I grew to hate it, my health began to fail, I wasn't getting any sleep, my wife left me.
Its too late for me now, but it doesn't have to be that way for you"---------------------
What an endorsement! I've fowarded the above to the Cast Iron ####. You'll be their new poster boy!
Gordsco --
What sort of measures have you taken to quiet the plastic pipes? Insulation, etc.?
Sound insulation is tricky, you can surround the pipes with fiberglass insulation and it won't make much of a difference. You can double up the drywall and that still won't make much of a difference. Compared to cast iron, ABS sounds like a freight train but, the Human brain is a wonderful thing, if you live next to the railway tracks long enough, you don't hear the trains.
"What sort of measures have you taken to quiet the plastic pipes?"
None of this worked for me, I sold the house.
Gordsco
I was wondering if sprayed-on foam insulation might help with sound insulation.
I was wondering if sprayed-on foam insulation might help with sound insulation.
It would certainly increase the density of the pipe. An insulating foam with a low expansion rate it might make the application less constricting. I would probably want to expose the pipe first, to do a good job. I wonder, does foam insulation affect plastic plumbing?
Gordsco
Maybe you'll have to try it out before you sell your house next time! ;)