He called it SQUID.... ever seen it?

[plumberscrack]

I meant to post about this months ago but totally forgot until Dunbar mentioned snaking drains at McDonalds.

We deal with a management company that has contracts on a few local McDonalds. At the peak of lunch rush, water is backing up under their soda dispensor. 4" floor drain with no less than 6 drains shoved in there from the dispensors, ice bin and machine. I grab the K-50 and start going to town. The first few passes into the trap I pull back the normal handful of straws, coffee stirrers, plastic lids, napkins. Straws are a real b*tch getting off the cable btw :mad:

These workers act like I'm not even there. They continue to step, stradle and kick me :angry: to get ice from the bin all the while my cable is splashing sewage into it when the lid is open :eek: :barf:

Anyways, I get the cable about 15 feet down the line as it clears. I pull back something I've never seen before. Ribbons of a white translucent substance about 2 to 3 feet long :confused: lots of it. I left it lying there so the manager could see it.

I felt like Jacques Cousteau when he found a new species of fish. I swear it was trying to move back towards the drain on it's own.

The manager took one look at it and said "yea, thats a squid all right"

Apparently this is common for soda dispensors to produce this stuff.

[DUNBAR]

Yeah I know what you mean about them working around you and not giving a damn that you're there. Not even a sorry.


The stuff I experienced, it looked like a light brown phlegm. Looked like it scaled the plastic pipe and came back in large pieces, shiny too on the sides and all that like the way those breakfast bars will make folded scrambled eggs.


Great. Now I'm hungry.

[Ace Sewer]

I get something similar (white to clear, snot like stuff, stringy and cohesive) commonly from floor drains under ice machines. Also under beer taps, but slightly different. I've been told it forms from a cold water bacteria. No idea if that is correct or not, though I typically see it in drains that get continuous drips of cold water. A little jetter tears it up and liquifies it nicely, especially with hot water.

I think soda is one of the most corrosive things we put in drains. I did one line, also a McDonalds, where the soda had rotted all the ci pipe from the floor drain under the taps nearly through. The line had a backflow preventer I could not jet through. When I opened it up, I found the flapper so corroded it had fallen off its hinge and blocked the line.

[plumberscrack]

I get something similar (white to clear, snot like stuff, stringy and cohesive) commonly from floor drains under ice machines. Also under beer taps, but slightly different. I've been told it forms from a cold water bacteria. No idea if that is correct or not, though I typically see it in drains that get continuous drips of cold water. A little jetter tears it up and liquifies it nicely, especially with hot water.


Yea! that's the stuff. Gave me the willies

[Crappy days]

I do work for one of the local mortuaries here in town. We take turns cleaning the hoppers(embalming sinks) there. We pull out material much like that from the fountain drains , blood red and filled with embalming sutures. Now that's nasty stuff. Before we started doing work there we each had to sign releases stating we would be prosecuted if we were to molest or disfigure any body's or diseased persons . When they had us sign this stuff I asked if this had been a problem in the past. The manager said , why do you think we are having you sign it. Now that is nasty.:barf:

[MrsSeatDown]

I do work for one of the local mortuaries here in town. We take turns cleaning the hoppers(embalming sinks) there. We pull out material much like that from the fountain drains , blood red and filled with embalming sutures. Now that's nasty stuff. Before we started doing work there we each had to sign releases stating we would be prosecuted if we were to molest or disfigure any body's or diseased persons . When they had us sign this stuff I asked if this had been a problem in the past. The manager said , why do you think we are having you sign it. Now that is nasty.:barf:

We had a girl at my work that use to steal embalming fluid from mortuaries, roll her cigarettes in it and smoke it. Turns out embalming fluid is the base to PCP.

[saysflushable]

oh ya I see it all the time. I fixed a W/H for a guy that works on the pepsi machines he said a certain chemical used regularly will take care of the problem. I'm sure it would work on the ice machines also. coffee shops have been a problem, those espresso machines let to much fine ground coffee in the drain then that grows that slime.

I put a reverse clean out in a coffee shop so another out fit could jet the line. They jetted it ,all was fine a while later a water softener out fit showed up spun the y around and tied the softener discharge into it. oh well at least they made the y flow the proper direction.

Sure would be nice to have C/O's on every floor drain ,fixture and any place else that might need a clean out in a restaurant