A Cautionary Tale about Sewers, Roots, and Gurgling Toilets (very long) If you own a home and do a lot of the maintenance on it yourself, you may find the enclosed story marginally interesting. Others, move on by, nothing here to see. It started with→[More:]my wife mentioning that when she showered, the toilet was gurgling and the water level in the toilet slightly rising, then falling to nothing. I pretty much knew it was roots in the sewer line, (our sewer pipe goes under a couple huge cedar trees in the back yard) and while they were not totally blocking the flow, they were acting as a filter and drastically slowing it down when large volumes of water were in the pipe, such as from a shower or laundry.

I had had the sewer "rooted" out 5 or 6 years ago, so this was not a huge surprise. Since it was not totally stopped as of yet, I went out a and bought some Copper Sulfate and flushed it down the toilet, then a few days later I got some big chunks of the stuff from the plumbers at work and put it directly into the line. In a few days, the problem seemed to be taken care of. This lasted a few carefree months until the gurgling came back.

One of the things about copper sulfate is that it will only kill the roots that it touches, so the lower part of the pipe area will be free of roots, but the majority of the pipe section will still have roots hanging down. There is a foaming root killer which says it will foam up in the pipe and kill all the roots, but I could not find it around here.

So, with a lot of internet research, I convinced myself that I could rent a machine and snake the pipe out, thereby paying $25 instead of $88 that a visit from a plumber would cost during the week. I did not want to miss work so I reserved one of these sewer snakes for this last Saturday.

At this point I need to say that I am paranoid to perhaps an unhealthy degree about house maintenance. I seem to constantly be waiting for the other shoe to drop, in the form of a roof collapsing, electrical fire, or, in this case, the sewer line collapsing, thereby costing lots of money that we do not have. So I was scared nearly to paralysis about even calling the plumber and being at their mercy vis a vis what needed to be done. I also have to say that I do a LOT of projects around the house, and succeed at most of them.

So, after a fitful night's sleep, I go rent this machine, (I decided to rent a 3" machine even though my sewer is 4". It was more manageable and I felt less of a chance of personal injury with the smaller one.) come home, pry up the deck board that is over the sewer clean-out, and start snaking the pipe. It goes slowly but well and I am pulling roots out, but then I get to a point where the tip of the snake is going THUNK THUNK THUNK and not going any further and binding up (which is dangerous because the snake can twist on itself with a lot of force and if you have a finger or arm in there, bad news) so after 5 hours, I get very tired and dirty and discouraged.

In addition, the line is TOTALLY plugged up by then, apparently with the roots that I had cut flowing down and forming a tight dam against the roots that I could not get through.

So, with my emotional state (see above) very ragged, I go in and say I am giving up and that, rather than living with the slowed-down sewer, we are blocked now and nothing gets out (and my daughter had deposited "solids" in the toilet during that time) and I am calling the plumber and paying weekend rates.

This lead to a long and difficult exchange with my wife about listening to her first, about why does this happen on a weekend, etc etc.

The plumber eventually comes, and, after he got his behemoth machine offloaded and around to our deck, it took all of 90 seconds to cut the roots in the entire remainder of the line and get the water flowing fast (and there is a certain secure feeling that comes from looking down in a sewer line and seeing fast water. OK I'm weird.)

So, instead of paying $88 the day before, I paid $25 for the machine rental and then $132 for the plumber's weekend rates (and this plumber is the "best" and "most reasonable" in town, that I know of).

Plus the emotional meltdown. Plus a loud argument with my wife in the back yard, in earshot of a number of other back yards.

And, after all that, I am mainly kicking myself for not renting the 4" auger in the first place.