We just serviced a client that wanted a second opinion. They had water pooling over the septic tank. They called in a septic tank specialist who drained the tank and immediately diagnosed the problem as a failed leach field. Cost to replace the leach field would be $ 6,000.00
Mind you he never inspected the pipe run leaving the tank to the leach field. He never offered to run a camera to inspect. After all it could be a root intrusion on the outflow side.
The other two notables were the history. This had never happened before and the homeowners had been in the house just over a year. A month and a half prior we had a great deal of rain. One run of weather gave us almost 4 or five days of non stop rain and no problems with the septic. Typically, you would expect the saturated ground to give you drainage problems with the septic if it was going to happen.
What the homeowner did tell me was that they had just finished washing a tremendous amount of laundry all at one time. She ran approx 8 loads of laundry through the course of a day. I immediately suspected that they just overtaxed the system. You cant put that much water all at once into a system that was designed fifteen years ago. Don't forget that the wash water is in addition to all the other water running in the house for the day, dishes, showers etc for a family of 4.
Camera inspection of the tank revealed that the outflow baffle T was intact so I felt there was less of of chance of debris going out the outflow to the leach field lines. The T prevented us from negotiating the camera through the pipe run.
I suggested a wait and see attitude. The rains are over for the most part, the ground is drying out. The homeowner is going to take a much more conservative and planned approach to wash water usage and see if the problem goes away.
If the problem persists, then we can excavate on the edge of the tank for access to the outflow, run a camera in that portion of the line and search for a blockage.
4/30/12 Just a follow up note. I called the homeowner back and no more problems reported.
Superjet, were the ones that know what were doing
Monday, April 30, 2012
Grand Theft Plumbing problems Sewer and Drain Style
Ok, another great story with a happy ending. A good customer called us to inspect a line that they were having repeat problems on. It was a commercial property with quite a few tennants including a mix of food and administrative businesses and my customer, a property management company, suspected that the restaurants were causing the problems with their contribution of grease to the line. We were going to video document who or what was causing the problem so that appropriate measures could be taken.
We had the inspection scheduled for later in the week and then we got a frantic phone call from the property manager that the line was backed up again, it had just been cleared by a rooter company a week or so earlier, and he was very concerened that the overflow in the parking lot might end up in a large fine with the city. From my experience, Cerritos, Ca commonly levies fines in the neighborhood of $10,000 for any sewage outflow that makes it into a storm drain.
I was concerned that I couldn't get to him fast enough, we were about an hour and a half out. With the threat of a $10,000 fine looming I told him to just have his rooter guy pop the line back open to stop the overflow. I'll hydro jet the line and inspect as soon as I can get there.
Well guess what, the rooter guy, a big franchise operation, "couldn't get the line open with a mainline cable." It happens now and then. "He insisted that they needed to hydro jet the line themselves in order to open the line." So the property manager agreed. Normally we do the hydro jetting and diagnosis for him for a reason. We are very good at what we do. Check out this link for stories from the same customer.Same customer another great story from Superjetdrains
Needless to say I wasn't too excited about the phone call telling me that the rooter guy got the hydro jetting work but it happens, and my primary concern was for my customer to avoid a monster fine. I lost the job but my customer was taken care of.
I'll say he was taken care of, they charged him $1,200.00 to hydro jet the line. That is three times what we charge. Alot of these companies pull that scam. They know they have you over a barrel at that point and they just throw out a number crazy as it is. It's pure profit for everybody, everyone is making their percentange.
Guess what happened next....your going to love this. So a week goes by and I talked to my client and told him that I can probably still do the video inspection on the line to determine who is contributing to the grease. I told him that chances are good that the rooter company probably did a quick jetting job and that there is still probably some grease in the line to show who is causing the problem. So he sends us out to document it on video.
We get there and there are only three clean/outs that could have been used to clear the line covering a distance of maybe 180 feet total. We started the video at the upper end c/o and we had a hell of a time just getting a picture. Every time we put the camera in the hole it was absolutely covered in grease and we had to pull it out, wipe it off and go again. We did this about 4 or 5 times before we were able to see anything. After we were actually able to see the pipe wall itself it was clearly evident that this stretch of pipe, about 80 feet, had'nt been touched by a hydro jetter. The pipe walls were coated with a very thick layer of white grease almost like cake frosting and it was absolutely plain that a hydro jetting nozzle had not passed through this pipe. It would have left large and unmistakeable score marks in the grease. Just like walking in the snow. If someone has passed by, your going to know it. What was also odd was that the entire pipe run for the complex could have been serviced, all the way to the mainline vault, from this one clean/out. There was no reason to use another c/o. If you hit this one, you would get the blockage and clean the entire line at the same time.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt and inspected the remaining two clean/outs. Both of the remaining clean/outs showed the pipe walls covered with thick grease and again absolutely no sign of having been serviced by a hydro jetter. Absolutely no doubt about it. Not only that but at the turn just before the third c/o there was a huge chunk of grease coming off the pipe wall and about to drop. I called my client and informed him that this was critical and needed to be serviced ASAP. It could back up at any moment. He contacted the rooter company to make good on what they were supposed to have done.
In the time that they took to get back to him, you guessed it, the line backed up again. This time Superjet hydro jetted the line completely and thoroughly and provided a wonderful before and after video. It was just like night and day.
Last I heard my client was raking the other guys over the coals. I hope so. It looks like grand theft to me. Grand Theft California penal code
Superjet Sewer and Drain Cleaning, were the ones that know what we're doing.
Superjet Hydro Jetting Sewer and Drain
We had the inspection scheduled for later in the week and then we got a frantic phone call from the property manager that the line was backed up again, it had just been cleared by a rooter company a week or so earlier, and he was very concerened that the overflow in the parking lot might end up in a large fine with the city. From my experience, Cerritos, Ca commonly levies fines in the neighborhood of $10,000 for any sewage outflow that makes it into a storm drain.
I was concerned that I couldn't get to him fast enough, we were about an hour and a half out. With the threat of a $10,000 fine looming I told him to just have his rooter guy pop the line back open to stop the overflow. I'll hydro jet the line and inspect as soon as I can get there.
Well guess what, the rooter guy, a big franchise operation, "couldn't get the line open with a mainline cable." It happens now and then. "He insisted that they needed to hydro jet the line themselves in order to open the line." So the property manager agreed. Normally we do the hydro jetting and diagnosis for him for a reason. We are very good at what we do. Check out this link for stories from the same customer.Same customer another great story from Superjetdrains
Needless to say I wasn't too excited about the phone call telling me that the rooter guy got the hydro jetting work but it happens, and my primary concern was for my customer to avoid a monster fine. I lost the job but my customer was taken care of.
I'll say he was taken care of, they charged him $1,200.00 to hydro jet the line. That is three times what we charge. Alot of these companies pull that scam. They know they have you over a barrel at that point and they just throw out a number crazy as it is. It's pure profit for everybody, everyone is making their percentange.
Guess what happened next....your going to love this. So a week goes by and I talked to my client and told him that I can probably still do the video inspection on the line to determine who is contributing to the grease. I told him that chances are good that the rooter company probably did a quick jetting job and that there is still probably some grease in the line to show who is causing the problem. So he sends us out to document it on video.
We get there and there are only three clean/outs that could have been used to clear the line covering a distance of maybe 180 feet total. We started the video at the upper end c/o and we had a hell of a time just getting a picture. Every time we put the camera in the hole it was absolutely covered in grease and we had to pull it out, wipe it off and go again. We did this about 4 or 5 times before we were able to see anything. After we were actually able to see the pipe wall itself it was clearly evident that this stretch of pipe, about 80 feet, had'nt been touched by a hydro jetter. The pipe walls were coated with a very thick layer of white grease almost like cake frosting and it was absolutely plain that a hydro jetting nozzle had not passed through this pipe. It would have left large and unmistakeable score marks in the grease. Just like walking in the snow. If someone has passed by, your going to know it. What was also odd was that the entire pipe run for the complex could have been serviced, all the way to the mainline vault, from this one clean/out. There was no reason to use another c/o. If you hit this one, you would get the blockage and clean the entire line at the same time.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt and inspected the remaining two clean/outs. Both of the remaining clean/outs showed the pipe walls covered with thick grease and again absolutely no sign of having been serviced by a hydro jetter. Absolutely no doubt about it. Not only that but at the turn just before the third c/o there was a huge chunk of grease coming off the pipe wall and about to drop. I called my client and informed him that this was critical and needed to be serviced ASAP. It could back up at any moment. He contacted the rooter company to make good on what they were supposed to have done.
In the time that they took to get back to him, you guessed it, the line backed up again. This time Superjet hydro jetted the line completely and thoroughly and provided a wonderful before and after video. It was just like night and day.
Last I heard my client was raking the other guys over the coals. I hope so. It looks like grand theft to me. Grand Theft California penal code
Superjet Sewer and Drain Cleaning, were the ones that know what we're doing.
Superjet Hydro Jetting Sewer and Drain
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
