New guy needing advice

[jhnarial]

Hi my name is John Arial and I'm from Kansas City Missouri.

I'm in a bit of a bind.I have a covert in my back-yard next to my garage doors to catch the rain water.It was stopped up with leaves and I put one of those blow up balloons in it to try and wash the leaves out.The problem is when I brought the hose out the balloon stayed in the drain pipe:eek:.Now it's really stopped up.

Instead of renting a sewer auger I went out and bought a Ridgid K-400.I have some more drains I was wanting to clean out anyways.I thought for sure I would be able to snag the balloon with this or cut through it.I can reach it with the stake but no luck snagging it or cutting through it.

Does anyone have some advice for this carpenter trying to be a plumber?

[Service Guy]

:killingme:
Sorry, but this sounds like a pro drain-cleaner should have been hired and wasn't ....twice.

[ToUtahNow]

Hi my name is John Arial and I'm from Kansas City Missouri.

I'm in a bit of a bind.I have a covert in my back-yard next to my garage doors to catch the rain water.It was stopped up with leaves and I put one of those blow up balloons in it to try and wash the leaves out.The problem is when I brought the hose out the balloon stayed in the drain pipe:eek:.Now it's really stopped up.

Instead of renting a sewer auger I went out and bought a Ridgid K-400.I have some more drains I was wanting to clean out anyways.I thought for sure I would be able to snag the balloon with this or cut through it.I can reach it with the stake but no luck snagging it or cutting through it.

Does anyone have some advice for this carpenter trying to be a plumber?

What size line is it?

How far in is the "balloon"?

Which type of balloon is it?

What type of attachment is on the end of your snake cable?

Mark

[jhnarial]

I hired rotto rooter the guy came out and played with my water hose didn't fix a dang thing and tryed to charge me 400 dollars.

[jhnarial]

Than you Mark

Its a 4 inch line

One of those water jet balloons

Its about 20 to 30 feet in

These are the attachment I have.
2925

[Service Guy]

You need a jetting machine to get leave-debris out of a drain-pipe. Did he offer to jet it?

[jhnarial]

He was just a kid when he got there his snake was broke.So we spent a hour trying to that fixed.Then he couldn't figure out where the clean out was.Basically I got a bad service guy.He spent about five hours here moving the hose from one drain to another.

After a while I told the guy just to forget about it.He went out to his van and made a invoice came back in and told me the bill was 400.I gave him a 150 and was pissed about that.

[ToUtahNow]

I'm not sure your K-400 is up to the task but you need to try and get a retrieving auger which will grab the balloon. All the bulb auger will do is push in further into the line.

Mark

[Service Guy]

He was just a kid when he got there his snake was broke.So we spent a hour trying to that fixed.Then he couldn't figure out where the clean out was.Basically I got a bad service guy.He spent about five hours here moving the hose from one drain to another.

After a while I told the guy just to forget about it.He went out to his van and made a invoice came back in and told me the bill was 400.I gave him a 150 and was pissed about that.

Ouch. Sorry to hear that, that is about as bad as it gets!!! I would recommend getting a pro with a jetting machine.

[jhnarial]

Thank you guys

I looked up a retrieving auger I will go get one


That service guy got me scared I thought if they want 400 not to fix I pro ably couldn't afford to have them fix it:rolleyes:

[Service Guy]

Thank you guys

I looked up a retrieving auger I will go get one


That service guy got me scared I thought if they want 400 not to fix I pro ably couldn't afford to have them fix it:rolleyes:

No, you just hired the wrong guy. You got terrible service, I am surprised you paid him at all. Even if the retriever head works, you'll need to get someone to flush the lines out with a jetter to really get them clean. Ask a lot of questions on the phone so you don't end up with bad service like last time!


Good luck!

[westcoastplumber]

try and get a referall froma friend or family member, your circle of people must know a good plumber

[Drain Medic]

I would get a pro who has a camera. Then they can put the camera in the line, put a section of cable behind it with a retriever and manually with that cable and a pair of vice grips or locks get that retriever to hook onto the balloon.

[aero1]

ah sounds like the infamous blow bag, and there pretty heavy duty, i liked the camera suggestion, worse comes to worse if you cant see anything at least you can locate its position, and you just might have to dig to retrieve it, hell i dont think a k1500 could shred one of those things, as always the best lessons learned are always the hardest. good luck.

[Ace Sewer]

This is a culvert, correct?

Do you have access to both ends?

Is it a straight run? If so how long?

I'm thinking you may be able to push the thing through with a piece of pipe or a stick of rebar (or several sections). I would try to push it back out the way it came in.

Alternatively, I would make a corkscrew out of a long nail or heavy wire with a sharp point on the end, affix it to end of cable, try to puncture the bag and hook it to pull it back. You need a stout cable to do this; 1/2" or bigger. If your k-400 has the 3/8" cable, it will probably not carry enough torque to do this at 20'-30'.

Agree jetting is a better option for the leaves once the bag is out. You might do some good running water through it while snaking it. If you are going to have it jetted anyway, you might want to throw up your hands and let the person doing the jetting get the bag out too. Make sure they bring a camera and a main line snake as well as the jetter.

All Clear is in Kansas? Don't know exactly where... if he is close maybe he can do it for you...

[Ace Sewer]

The easiest thing if its not too deep might be to just dig it up.