Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Strong suggestion:
Buy drain cleaner, put it in your bathroom under your girl stuff (no men ever look there!!!) and use it stealthily. BT, DT. Screw all that "oh, no, don't use that, you'll ruin the pipes!"
Granted, you have to make sure that you buy the right stuff, so that you DON'T ruin the pipes, of course, but most modern gunk is created so as not to eat the under-pad pipes.
Hitch
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Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
I think the home remedy is effective; baking soda and white vinegar, followed by boiling water. It might take a few applications but it works and even dad can't say it's harming the pipes. It's easy to keep the ingredients on hand without hiding them under the tampons, too.
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Especially when I don't use tampons anymore (hooray for The Cup).
Luckily, today it was easily unblocked, it wasn't too bad. I had forgotten the third, blind connection has a screw cap on it and after opening that my father was able to suck out the gunk from the connection and the stuff going up (that wet/dry vacuum is was definitely worth it's money) and pipe going back (there's a corner where the pipe from upstairs turns 90degrees into the wall) was easily unblocked with a bit of electrical wire, where it was pushed into a bigger pipe of the toilets. The bitumen tape (located in the attic) wasn't needed.
My father has now realized (after probably a not so fun night of billiards) that something needs to be done. That pipe is partially cast iron and it isn't in the best of shape )hence the bitumen tape. He plans to ask a builder friend to open up the wall so the cast iron section, a couple of meters long) can be replaced.
BTW, he doesn't want to use baking soda and vinegar. Yes, it doesn't harm the pipes, but he believes it does. But when that cast iron section is replaced the problems will be gone. All the other pipes are fairly wide, this is a narrow pipe, on which the washing machine and dishwasher are also connected (can't run them at the same time; the pipe can't handle that and the it will overflow in the sink in the kitchen).
Sometimes I wonder who did the installation in our house. The pipes were also took an interesting route. From the basement three floors up (where there never has been a gas heater), the a couple of meters to right, and then down again to the living room to the heater. In the living room we had one pipe going up and one going down. They probably did that in case they wanted a gas heater in future installed in that room upstairs, but why not one pipe, with a connection to heater and a connection going up one floor?