Outside Drain Blocked

Soldato
Joined
26 Mar 2006
Posts
11,653
Location
United Kingdom
Hey all,

The outside drain of our house is blocked. Any ideas on how to unblock it, it's overflowed and stinks. The rainwater drain comes down to it, and then the drain which is blocked goes down into the ground.

Thanks.
 
And once you've got the rods, don't mention them to neighbours...unless you like clearing the drains for half the street/all the dippy neighbours with babies, who forget you're not meant to put nappies down the loo..

Seriously for the relatively small cost of them a set of drain rods is a must for anyone in their own house, just remember to turn them the correct way, otherwise you will end up leaving half the set down the drain :p
 
The drains on our street need doing every now and again. Apparently they've never been quite right since some 'tard did indeed bung nappies down there.
 
Several years back, on Easter Monday (ffs) a drain cover in my garden popped and a load of sewage flooded into my porch.

I had to call Dyno Rod out, expensive at the best of times but on a bank holiday £££££, and once they had cleared the blockage I had to clean out my porch which was full of ****. It was one of the most disgusting things I've ever had to do.
 
Cheap emergency option - and if its a small blockage caused by Kitchen waste (cooking fat etc) is a Woolly mop on a sturdy handle. Then good old elbow grease. Get the suction piston action going (oo err) with running hot water down the sink.

You might wanna' consider a gallon of detergent too.

If the block is any further up the lien than your kitchen one you could be in the ****, literally
 
You might get away with a bottle of 1-Shot drain cleaner which is 90% sulphuric acid and dissolves pretty much everything.

sodium hydroxide

loads of it.
This is the other option, known as caustic soda when sold in the hardware shop. Obviously don't mix it with 1-Shot or you'll have big trouble on your hands :D
 
Bit of an Update, tried a rod which has like pincers on the front. It's one big long flexible metalish one. No luck. The smell is just awful, tried plungering like smashing a pasty. No luck.

The house in total has about 7 outside drains, this is at the other side of the house.
 
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Had this same thing happen in my old house, luckily enough we had an insurance policy where this was covered in it.

The drain people came round and tried to unblock and couldnt, the poor chap was there till 2 in the morning and it still wouldnt unblock.

Turned out is was a scummy bugger who lived 2 doors away, apparantly his drains had been backed up for weeks but didnt think to do anything about it.

Luckily enough the council came and basically blasted the whole system, it eventually shifted.

But man...i feel your pain, we lived with the stench for weeks wondering where it was coming from.
 
Seems like the block is further down the drain. No Rod shifting has done it. Going to get some of the stuff people wrote on here to see. If it doesn't sort its' self over night then will ring the unblocking people.
 
A girl I live with blocked ours a few weeks ago with her shall we say 'jam rags' and baby wipes. And when I told her not to do it she responded with :
'Well it's not a very good system then'.
'No of course it ******* isn't you **** it's an old house, not modern student accomodation! There's a sanitary bin there. Use it and empty it!'

Poor maintenance chap had to get the rods down it. Was full to the brim, only the weight of the drain cover was stopping it overflowing. It had actually flowed back up out the shower and kitchen sink. A week earlier we used some drain cleaner and thought we had cleared it. Obviously not. Some of the stools in that drain were like clay! I gave him a hand. Strong stomachs 4tw.
 
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