Snake It Ourselves, or Call a Professional?

January 6, 2015 11:01 AM

Our basement drain got overwhelmed last night and started bubbling back some black silty water. Should we just call a Roto-Rooter style service, or try and rent a power snake to D.I.Y it? What sort of terrible things could happen if two inexperienced homeowners tried to power snake a basement drain all by themselves?

Last night, our basement drain started backing up with some blackish silty water after we ran a load of laundry and a load of dishes in quick succession. Some plunging and patience kept thing under control, but the drain still doesn't appear to be flowing freely.

We just moved into the place a couple months ago and the sewer scope came back clean on inspection, but it sounds like this is a branch drain(?); our toilet and tub seem to still be draining wonderfully, with no effect on the basement drain (thank god).

Our first impulse was to call our sewer scope dude for recommendations of local services, but I thought I'd explore some options first, with the help of Mefites. Other places on the web are quoting $300 for a Roto-Rooter type service, versus $50 for renting a power snake ourselves. To me, the absolute safest idea would be to call Roto-Rooter folks this time, watch them closely and ask questions, and then rent the snake ourselves if it happens again.

posted by redsparkler to Home & Garden (13 answers total)

I'd get a pro to do this, but not a national brand. Ask the neighbors who the dude in the neighborhood is. I called a national brand, and got socked all kinds of dough, then had to replace the sewer pipe again. If I had called the neighborhood person, I would have saved money (Like $900)

As it turns out, it was the city's problem as the main pipes were causing back-flow (after we sold the house, and the new owner had a back up.)

If you're in Atlanta, I'll give you the name of our guy. He's a total good ol' boy, but he's very good.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 11:06 AM on January 6, 2015

Best answer: In my experience, the worst thing that can happen if you snake your drain yourself is that it doesn't work. We had a branch drain back up, and after watching a few how-to videos on Youtube to make sure we knew what to expect, we snaked it ourselves with the kind of snake that attaches to a drill. When that didn't work, we rented a professional-grade snake from Home Depot. That worked. Snaking a line is really easy, honestly.

We called in the professionals when the main line backed up and we couldn't clear it (very old house, no main cleanout installed -- had to pay to have one installed, that wasn't fun).
posted by erst at 11:06 AM on January 6, 2015

Response by poster: Good news! I just discovered that our local tool library has a couple drain snakes available, so I might borrow one of those for a few days and see how it works (Unless anyone chimes in with some very dire tales).
posted by redsparkler at 11:10 AM on January 6, 2015

Best answer: Well, the worst thing that can happen if you snake a line wrong is that you can bust your pipes, but they generally have to be fucked to the replacement level anyway (at an old student ghetto apartment, I had inexperienced maintenance men bust the already rusted pipes, coating much of the basement in vile crap). Snaking drains isn't that difficult, and if you just use the hand-powered ones or even a light torque drill you should be fine. Just don't go industrial roto-rooter in 100-year-old pipes as your first move.
posted by klangklangston at 11:17 AM on January 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I've got a chronic problem that I last dealt with using a professional. What made the money well spent was not having to clean up the equipment. Honestly when he pulled the industrial-grade snake out it was foul, even after running copious amounts of water through the pipe after it was cleared but with the snake still in it. I asked him, after he pulled it out, "How 'bout we run it through again just to make sure" and he said that doing that would just sling the stuff that was still on the snake all over the room. He also said that it would take a couple hours back at the shop to clean the equipment. And this was a branch that had only a kitchen sink on it. That's my $0.02.
posted by achrise at 11:23 AM on January 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is a constant of life at Chez BlahLaLa and we use a local plumber recommended by neighbors. He charges us in the neighborhood of $60-$80 to do it. Totally worth it. He also uses his shop vac to get rid of any backed up water in the laundry room. He's coming today, as a matter of fact. Old houses can suck sometimes.
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:32 AM on January 6, 2015

Best answer: Snaking a line can be easy if you know what you're doing, but it can be downright risky if you don't.

I don't know how powerful the ones at your tool library are, but if it's motorized, the snake will twirl pretty ferociously every second there's power to it. Even with one person to push the snake through, tough work gloves, and CLEAR "stop" and "go" commands for another person hitting the power, the thing can loop around itself in a split second. When this happens, it can grab fingers, glove, whatever and cause real bodily harm. (The same can happen when you're reversing out of the line.)

I don't mean to be alarmist. We had problems frequently enough to buy a 100-ft power snake and use it several times before deciding it was too stressful (and yes, a total pain to clean--those are heavy and MUST be hosed down after use).

I'd definitely find a neighborhood recommendation if you can, not because a professional's fingers are less valuable, but because they know how to use the equipment without getting hurt.
posted by whoiam at 11:57 AM on January 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: If you do chose to go the DIY route start with [as klangklangston said above and on preview whoiam indicated as well] a hand operated or low torque snake as the bigger ones have a flywheel with quite a bit of torque and continue for a bit after you might want it to stop. Snaking a drain isn't hard, until it is, and is a bit of an art.
posted by vapidave at 12:07 PM on January 6, 2015

We had a somewhat similar situation last year, paid for a national brand to do the work, and a year plus afterwards are still very happy with that decision. Once the repair guy got into the pipe we discovered that we had a cracked sewer line (which we confirmed via video scans) nine feet under our driveway, which lead to an expensive but necessary repair. The guy that did the work and lead the repair crew was extremely competent, and as part of his duties took care of all the necessary permits and city inspections; our city is notorious for requiring permits and inspections for everything. So while it may have been possible for me to run the power snake and make a simple repair a few feet below the surface, I doubt I could have sussed out the broken sewer pipe issue as quickly and competently as he did, never mind about excavating and replacing the broken pipe that was buried nine feet under our concrete driveway. Some times it's worth paying a pro to do the work for you, and this could be one of those times.
posted by mosk at 2:19 PM on January 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have a slow drain branch from one bathroom and clothes washer, I went for periodic applications of a microbal digestive solution, which now works great without resorting to mechanical means.
posted by nickggully at 2:20 PM on January 6, 2015

Best answer: If you use one of those shorter snakes that attaches to a drill motor, it's fairly risk free. Can you estimate how long the run is to the point where the sinks drain line meets with thr floor drain? As far as the motorized snakes...I'd find a local plumber, at least the first time. He should be able to make recommendations for avoiding the problem in the future.
posted by coldhotel at 5:42 PM on January 6, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks, guys! These are exactly the kinds of things I wanted to hear about. Mentioning price was pretty helpful, too; I found a plumbing and drain service here in Portland that has great reviews on Yelp, and their estimate for a drain snaking is $95.

I'm going to pay close attention to technique and cleanup, ask a lot of questions, and write a bunch of notes so we can snake it ourselves next time!
posted by redsparkler at 10:15 AM on January 8, 2015

Response by poster: The drain is now draining again!

Even better: the guy who came out was super helpful, and once I mentioned that I hope to snake the drain myself sometime in the future (such aspirations!), he mentioned a few other details about the procedure that will be good to know in future snaking situations. Plus, he was more than willing to talk toilets and answer questions about our laundry hoses, which cleared up a few plumbing questions that had been weighing on me for a while.

(Surprisingly, the drain snake didn't seem to be that messy; at least not messy enough to dissuade me from giving it a shot the next time this particular scenario happens.)
posted by redsparkler at 6:33 PM on January 8, 2015 [1 favorite]