Damn Standpipe. AGAIN.

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danemodsandy

danemodsandy

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 6, 2006
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8,180
Location
The Bramford, Apt. 7-E
I am just coming off a serious flooding of my laundry room and basement that happened last night; I was up till all hours with the carpet cleaner.

What seems to have happened is the washer drain standpipe backed up when the washer pumped out the wash water. Not only was there evidence of overflow around the standpipe, the laundry room sink (in a counter several feet away from the washer) also overflowed; there was sudsy water all over that counter.

This is not the first time this has happened, but it was definitely the most serious. The problem seems to have something to do with detergent. We cannot use powders (my preference) at all, because there'll be water all over the floor if we do. Using too much liquid will also trigger the problem; I think I got a little slap-happy with the measuring cap last night. Loads with sheets also seem to trigger the problem; the load I was running was sheets. I do not stuff my washer (an LA 108 centre-dial Maytag), and I stick to the measuring recommendations on the detergent label. Also, the problem seems to occur when I've used something besides my regular detergent, Huish's Sun liquid. Last night's epic flood seems to have come courtesy of the Arm & Hammer people.

I've got everything clean and dry now, and I've put some commercial drain cleaner in the drain, flushing for the full five minutes, just in case there was some kind of blockage. And the washer seems to be working okay now. But is there anything I can do to eliminate this problem, or to minimise it? I'm exhausted from tossing washers, dryers, and the other contents of the room around, to say nothing of mopping and running the carpet cleaning machine.
 
P.S.:

The washer's filter is clean and its little holes are all clear of lint. We clean the lint filter on the washer every load (dryer too, for that matter).

Oh, dear, what can the matter be?
 
Try using boiling salted water instead of chemicals.
(Think: water from strained pasta).

Although your obstruction must be lint/buttons and such rather than grease and hair.

This seems bizarre as some also say use 2 cups of bleach as a line cleaner. (Don't need to be a fancy "label".) So doesn't washing whites clean the line automatically?

After the last deluge & fiasco, I got me a wet dry/vac. MAGNIFICENT!

Good luck. Sorry to hear you had a rough time.
 
Over here you call DynoRod. The company with the most horrible shade of orange on its vans that gives me an instant headache!! But they can certainly unblock anything known to man!
 
Toggles:

"Although your obstruction must be lint/buttons and such rather than grease and hair."

Lint is a possibility. Also cat hair, since my little cat-boy Tony sleeps with me. But I do clean that filter religiously, and both lint and hair are trapped in it when I take it out.
 
if money isnt a concern, i would call a plumber. the pipes arent graded properly or need to be cleaned.
 
Size?

How old is the dwelling structure? What are the size of the pipes? I had somewhat the same problem when I lived in a house built in 1948 and with one built in 1972. The problem turned out to be the size of the water drain pipes. They were to small. When I bought a 200 year old house and started renovation I made sure the drain pipes were much larger than code required because the pipes according to code...were to small!

I also noticed some soaps and detergents affected the issue. Bottom line for me was the drain size.

Now a question for you...Carpet in a laundry room? No overflow tray under the machine?

First I would never put carpet in a laundry room. Ok, I don't have a real laundry room like I want. My stack washer/dryer is in my bath. My bath is an enclosed porch built sometime after the Civil War. I installed a roman tub and enjoy having the unit beside the tub to warm a towel while I am in the bath.

And I put an overflow tray in just in case. I tend to use a Persion (did I spell that right?) or Peking rug by the bath but they are easily taken up for cleaning. Room carpeting, no way. To much work to keep clean. Plus wall to wall carpet traps dust (I have lost one lung to sarcoidal lung disease and have bad asthma)so that type of floor covering is out for me.

Check your plumbing. Sorry you had that trouble. I encourage you to look at the house systems.

And best wishes that you get a good nights sleep tonight.

Greg in Georgia
 
Greg:

House was built in '83, up to code at that time. The standpipe is the usual size, and as of today (after my efforts), is flowing very freely.

The carpet is not in the laundry room itself; it's in my office, directly adjoining. Because last night's flood was so bad, it got to the carpet, which it has never done before. While there was only an area about two feet by four that got wet, that area sure did yield a lot of water! I vac'ed up about twelve gallons or so total from the laundry room and the office carpet.

Since this is a rental, I'm not about to invest in a piping change; I've done more than enough for this landlord already. :-( But if anyone has any ideas about what care could be taken to prevent a recurrence given the situation we have, I'm all ears.
 
I suspect the "commercial drain cleaner" was the fix here. You might want to treat the drain on a regular basis, maybe monthly. It's also possible that the obstruction is further down the line, in which case a drain cleaner might or might not resolve the problem. I have found that a "snake" works wonders on obstructions further down the line.

In the case of my home, the kitchen sink, the washer, and the original 1941 bath are all on the same drain line. After I sent about a quart of sauerkrauth down the garbage disposer, it clogged the drain under the bathroom, and a load of wash water from the Neptune sent a geyser of sauerkraut into the shower stall. It took about 50 ft of snake from the cleanout under the sink (accessed from outside the building, giving a more or less straight shot to the main line) to unclog the line. It was not the most pleasant afternoon of my life ;-). The shower drain has backed up once since then (in the past five years) and I handled that incident by pouring an excess of drain cleaner down the shower drain to help digest whatever clog might have been in the near vicinity, and it hasn't happened again - so far. The main contributers to that drain line are the kitchen and the washer. The bathroom itself gets little use, so things like hair clogs are not a likely culprit.
 
sudsmaster:

Yeah, I'm wondering if I should do regular treatments, but with something less harsh than I used today.

Today's clearing was done with a "professional-strength" drain opener called "Hot Power", from a company called ComStar. It's from the hardware store, and it's so caustic the bottle comes sealed in a plastic bag. It's an excellent product, but I suspect that it's too harsh for regular use; it will dissolve stuff like toilet paper and erm, sanitary gadgets. It will also dissolve your T-shirt if it splashes onto it; ask me how I know! (Long time ago).

Does anyone have a recommendation on a product that would be effective (I suspect lint), but which wouldn't eat the pipes over time?
 
How well is the drain VENTED? You need AIR behind water for it to drain properly, especially high velocity water, suds just complicate a poorly vented drain. How far is the standpipe from the main stack? In NY, most drains beyond 6 feet of a main vent, need their own vent. Also, the main stack vent(roof) could be clogged with leaves, dead animals,nests, who knows what. Most people think that the roof vent pipes are to get rid of sewer gas, not true, the traps are supposed to prevent sewer gas. Pipe vents are for drainage, without air, you get a siphon effect and a poor drain due to pressure differentals.
 
Sandy,

I'm not familiar with that product and would have to see an ingredient listing to draw any conclusion about its safety.

In general, however, strong alkalies, like lye, are ok with most drains. However, various acids will attack the metal in most drains, and shouldn't be put down a drain. Example: battery acid (sulfuric). It is possible, given the right procedure and equipment, to neutralize strong acids, turning them into salt and water, so that they are safe for drains. But a lot of heat is released in this process and it can be dangerous. I don't know of any drain opener that uses strong acids, though.

The best product to use in your case would depend on the nature of the material causing the blockage. If it's food residue, then a product containing enzymes might be best. If it's lint or even tree roots, then a strong alkali drain cleaner might be best. I've used both on the kitchen-washer-bath drain line.

The enzyme based drain cleaner I've used is Zep commecial "Drain Care". It doesn't appear to contain lye, just concentrated enzymes. It is probably best used as a way to maintain clean drains. Home Depot carries Zep products, as I recall.

The caustic stuff I've used has been the max strength products from Draino and Liquid Plumber. These are basically lye and concentrated bleach. These are the type that eat away at all sorts of stuff, including your skin if you should leave some on it too long. Basically the same sort of stuff as oven cleaner. The caustic drain cleaners are supposed to remove clogs due to hair. However in my experience a hair clog often occurs down drain from the trap. The drain cleaner winds up mostly in the trap, not really getting to the hair clog in any great concentration. In these cases I find a snake is the best, and quickest, answer. I have snaked out drains and the snakes hve come out with an amazing amount of hair (not usually mine!) wrapped around the end of the snake, often the hair clog is many feet past the trap. Snaking is arduous and messy, though, and often best performed if you can disassemble the drain and insert the snake into the straight pipe after the trap (the trap just makes it more difficult to run the snake down the drain. In fact, disassembling the trap is probably a very good idea in most cases. Have a spare trap handy since quite often an old trap - esp the thin chrome plated brass ones - is on the verge of failure and will need to be replaced when you remove it! If there is a "cleanout" on the side of the house, giving you a straight shot into the drain line, so much the better. If you plan to remove the trap, don't add a caustic drain cleaner first. Remove the trap, inspect it, run a snake if needed, and then reassemble everything. If it's still clogged then a drain cleaner product might be helpful. Also helpful is to drain the trap of standing water, and then add the product so that it runs down the drain full strength before it hits the clogged area. And, if the drain is completely clogged with no flow, then I would not use a caustic cleaner - I'd use a snake instead. No sense in making the hands-on stuff more unpleasant with caustic drain water than it already is.
 
I would be very tempted to

grit my teeth, pick up the phone, and call a drain service, and have them clear the drain from the standpipe all the way to the street, especially if this happened more than once.

I probably would not give my landlord the bill, but eat it, even if it meant that I would only eat beans and rice for a month.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
I think you guys may be missing the point here...this is a Maytag we're talking about which isn't a wimpy neutral-draining Kenmore....I had a very similar problem when I replaced a DD KM with a Maytag----water everywhere. My standpipe which had worked fine with the KM couldn't handle the rush of water from the spin-drain Maytag. Had to seal the hose into the standpipe with a reducer and some worm clamps. Particularly with a sheet load (i.e. releasing the water fast) instead of a towel/absorbent load...I think it all adds up.
 
Our house was built in 1956. When we bought it 17+ years ago there had been a standpipe used but we installed a laundry sink. The piping under the house can be problematic the way they laid it out and plumbing vans are a fairly common sight in this 'hood of look-alike homes. Problems tend to show up first at the laundry area in the garage as that's the lowest point in the system.

One thing we learned early on: a standpipe would have been a disaster. The laundry drain would still eventually slow down after a good reaming by the sewer service. The laundry sink would fill higher and higher with water from the washer. It was a good indicator that the time for another reaming would soon be upon us. If we were using a standpipe, it would have been spewing everywhere in no time at all.

So since you understandably are not inclined to spend your own money fixing your building's infrastructure, I'd suggest that if it's physically possible, drain your Maytag into the sink instead of directly into the pipe.

Also, after the very first time the pipes were unclogged, the guy advised us to start using one of those metal mesh "socks" on the end of the laundry hose to catch lint. We have been religious about that and have eliminated many visits from the sewer guy this way. You would be surprised how quickly those socks need to be replaced from all the lint they capture and keep from going into the pipes.

When we got our Duet pair about a year ago, the pipes were again in need of attention. The Duet uses so little water that our problems at the laundry sink are probably over for quite a while now. My main concern though, is that maybe the Duet uses so little water that it's not pushing things far enough down the line, and we could end up with problems that crop up a little more suddenly.

But Sandy, we are homeowners and this is part of that whole package. As an apartment dweller, you should not have to pay for fixing the pipes. I hope you manage to resolve this without having to spend much of your own money.

Ralph
 
I have the same problem

We have a Maytag Dependable Care (1999 vintage).

The standpipe is 1 1/2" diameter and has a p-trap then the main line is 2" for about 20' where it joins a pipe from the kitchen sink. There are the proper plumbing vents at both locations.

This only happens if too much detergent is used in the wash. But it happens in the 1st. rinse. And when it happens it is usually only a cup or so of water.

I believe it is a combination of that Maytag high speed drain pump and the suds left over from the wash. The wash doesn't overflow, because the spin is somewhat slowed by the suds, when it drains from that first rinse, there are probably some suds in the pipe and the spin, is a little faster.

So if we use about a half of the supplied measuring cup with Tide powder it works ok.

The only other time it happens is when the main 4" line is clogged. We have replaced all of that line and hopefully that won't be a problem any more. But the County line 6" does occassionally clog, and since we are the lowest house on that line...that can be a problem as well.

Some day I will have the 2" line professionally cleaned, but I doubt if it will help. As was mentioned, I never had this problem when I had my Lady Kenmore Solid State Heavy Duty with that neutral drain.

Martin
 
At our house this problem existed with both an early 70's center dial Maytag as well as with a '97 Amana which absolutely shot the water out of the drain hose compared to the Maytag. I wouldn't necessarily blame the problems Sandy is having on the Maytag's spin/drain function. Pipes should be able to move a large amount of fast-moving water, and if they can't it's not the machine's fault.
 
My brother is a plumber and constantly has a good chuckle when he is called out clear a drain and hears the home remedies used to keep the line open and/or make it run properly. Bleach, baking soda & vinegar, coat hangers, etc. are all nonsense and typically a complete waste of time and money. Some of the very strong drain cleaners will work OK for grease and build-up of soaps and other fats, but do nothing for lint, hair and other debris. They really only delay the time between the problem and a real solution. Any home built within the last fifty years should have adequate drain capacity for any automatic washer, regardless of brand or the additives used. If the drains are running slowly, the only thing to completely solve the problem is to have the drain line run out with an auger/snake. You can do this yourself, renting the equipment when needed or call a professional. I have a small snake to use for shower, sink and tub drains from time to time, but about every 5-8 years, I have to call Roto-Rooter out to run them all the way to the street.

If you are living in a rented property, I would think the landlord would be happy to have the drains run out as needed to prevent damage to his property from them backing up. If you're flushing lots of things down the drains that have no business there, then you may have a bit of a problem, but I would think this is his/her responsibility to maintain the property up to code. One call to the local code enforcement agency and the landlord won't ever fuss about it again. ;-)
 
~I suspect the "commercial drain cleaner" was the fix here.

I used this stuff for a while. It appeared to work. Sometimes TOO well. When my main pipe/trap clogs water comes out of my washer's standpipe connection and it rains on my mahcines... anyhoo.. One day it became clogged, so I opened the main trap and stuck my hand in to find chunks of old pipe sediment/coatings stuck at the trap. This made a place to snag "the paper of life" (you know what I mean- like on Star Trek it circles Uranus for Klingons). So needless to say I'm not using this product any more.

http://www.drano.com/plumbing-problems/
 
Had the same problem in 2 of my rental units. One had a Maytag and the other had a Kenmore. Older vintage probably 60's. Anyways both drains would back up if doing a full load. No problem on 1/2 or small loads. Had both drains routed out by Drain Pro from the washer to the street. Man the scale on the pipes was incredible, not to mention the paper towels and other stuff that was actually caught up on the insides of the pipe out under the front lawn. Never had a problem after that. Now my brothers house who also has a Maytag was running into the same problem. He had drain pro out and did the routing thing and still the problem persisted. Well the guy went up on the roof and with a metal snake went down the vent pipe and pulled up a dead squirrel. Well that took care of his problem. You may have a 1 or 2 part problem. Good luck, it can be fixed.
Jon
 
My Aunt had a similar problem......long story shortened...
Her family had been disposing the moist toilet tissue wipes down the toilet. And, they are not pipe-friendly! Roto-Rooter did the job and she no longer has that problem...nor does she flush those moist towelettes!
 

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