3331 S Winston St.

Not too long after we purchased the house in January of 2005 we noticed occasionally water would back up in the laundry room.  We had some people come out and they snaked the drain from the downstairs bathroom out to the sewer.  

All was well for a while then the problem started happening again, this time we had RotoRooter come out and they snaked the drain from the downstairs bathroom out to the sewer.  We questioned why this kept happening and the guy said more than likely the pipe outside of the house that went to the sewer was clogged with roots from near by trees.  He said they could have someone come out with a video on the end of the snake and they could show us the issue.  This was all free so we agreed.  A man came out and ran the video camera down the pipe and out to the sewer, the entire time pointing out where roots had grown into the pipe which was only in one location.  We then had to watch a video on replacing the pipe out to the sewer and if we didn’t all the disastrous effects it could have.  After trying to get us to spend a good $20,000 the man left.  Terry and I had a chance to talk and we both saw the same thing on the video camera, which was nothing.  There was once area where roots had grown in maybe an inch into the pipe, nothing that looked anything like we saw in the this-is-the-hell-you-will-ensue-if-you-don’t-give-us-money-video.

Needless to say the problems started again a few months later with the water backup in the laundry room.  This time we called Rescue Rooter.  We explained the problem to the technician that showed up and he decided to snake the pipe from the laundry room out to the sewer.  Genius!  As he started pulling the snake back he noticed black all over the snake and concluded that the pipe from the laundry room to the bathroom was basically deteriorating thus causing all the blackness on the snake.  

Consequently we hired a contractor to dig out and replace the pipe from the laundry room to the downstairs bathroom and replace the shower which was a complete pile of crap, and probably caused the pipe to deteriorate in the first place.  $5,000 later we have a new shower, proper moisture lock dry wall, new pipes and haven’t had any issues with backups in 4 years.

Here are some images of the construction.