There was a contractor there working on site that was in the process of "mud jacking" the foundation. It's a process where they forcefully pump a fluid concrete like material under the foundation to raise a portion of the building that is sagging or settling.
In the middle of this process, some of the toilets in the administration side of the building stopped working. Well things quickly snowballed after that point. We hydro jetted one inside toilet line to a stop point and then started locating with a camera to map things out. Initially maintenance and I were not sure that this was all related yet but we were suspicious. After a little more legwork and plotting the runs which included some overhead runs in the sub basement area, we determined that somehow the concrete mud had found it's way into the sewer line and the pressure behind the pumping of the material was so great that the concrete had made it's way into about 200 feet of 2", 3" and 4" pipe going both upstream to the 2nd floor and downstream about 100 feet to the mainline tie in.
It quickly turned into a military type of operation with all available maintenance personnel directed over to our site to do whatever could be done to expedite a fix.
We all had a serious conversation with the contractor who was doing the mud jacking about the feasibility of hydro jetting this material out of the pipe. It had already hardened solid and was becoming harder as more time passed.
We all knew that if it couldn't be hydro jetted out of the lines, the only alternative would be to dig up the pipes and break open the walls. Your talking about 200 feet of pipe running all over this building.
We ran a quick test on a section of pipe and determined that with a rotary nozzle it would be slow going but we could chew up and move the material. The maintenance crew excavated a spot outside that I had marked with camera to crack open the mainline so we could attack it from two different directions and pull the material back to a pit to drop it out of the line.
We immediately started on what turned out to be three long days running into night of messy and hard work but we pulled it off. We pulled off an absolute miracle. We cleared all of the lines and mind you the lines were packed solid, absolutely solid and hardened with that concrete.
We brought that building back from the dead and saved that contractor's insurance agency well over a hundred grand. You know that contractor never did send me a thank you note.
The only way I was able to clear those lines was by using the best rotating nozzles that money could buy. We used Stoneage Warthog nozzles.
So when a jetting contractor tells you " We use warthog rotary nozzles", you will have an appreciation of the capability that brings to the job.
"Superjet Sewer and Drain Cleaning, were the ones that know what were doing."
Superjet Sewer and Drain Cleaning LLC
www.superjetdrains.com
This photograph shows a horizontal run in the elevator access way with a maintenance technician's hand on it. Notice the riser going up that is absolutely solid with material. At this stage we have already hydro jetted the horizontal clear of debris.
