this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Asklemmy
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I brought a drain snake for 3x the price of liquid drain unblocker and it got stuck in the drain and won't come out.
You need to get a drain snake snake
Or a drain mongoose
a drainaconda
Oh that's unfortunate. Something made to get things unstuck in the pipes gets itself stuck there...
Classic porn plot
Something wrong mitt deine kable?
You can guess what happens next
I had a drain coming from my HVAC get clogged. Figuring I could fix it myself and save a few hundred dollars by not call the HVAC repair, I stuck a pipe snake down there. As soon as it got to the u-bend, it got stuck. A couple of tugs later the head broke off.
This pipe goes from the HVAC in the attic into the upstairs bathroom, then down and out of the house. I knew if the head went down it could result in needing to punch a hole in a wall or ceiling if it got stuck again. So, I cut the pipe on either side of the bend. Sure enough the head of the snake was lodged at the bottom of the U.
No matter what I did I could not dislodge it from the bottom of the u-bend. This is around 7-8 PM on a Saturday. So I race out to the big-box hardware store, because they normally close around 9 PM. And they did not have a single piece of PVC with a u-bend that is the size I needed. And nothing even close. I go to the other big-box store across the street they don't have it either. But I did find the wise old man that works there, I explain to him what happened and what I need. He tells me I need to go to this specialty plumbing store a ways down the highway.
I looked up this plumbing store. They are closed for the day. They are also not open on Sundays. Okay I live in one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the US. There has to be a plumbing store open before Monday. Well there might be, but I couldn't find it.
Now this is Texas in August. There is no way my wife and kids should suffer for two days because of my dumb ass mistake. So I called the HVAC guy. They send some out at like 2 AM and the guy replaces the U-bend and installs a cleanable filter before it, so I can prevent that from happening again. In all a 30 second job that should have cost me nothing, cost me 7 hours of anxiety and $500.
Thank you for sharing this, it didn't disappoint. The die hard efforts we take to save a buck or exercise ingenuity mostly work out but when it comes to the wife and kids I usually throw in the towel.
I'll give you a short story in return in that same vain: woke up to a raccoon on our deck, he was obviously in a pretty bad way. Pacing, frothing, sparse hair, lice. We figured it was rabid and I just wanted to try dropping a brick on it from above or smashing it, but I knew it would've been messy. Went out and bought an $80 trap, set it, but the dang thing just wouldn't go in. Well she wanted her deck space back so ultimately we called someone to remove it, $200. Turns out it had distemper. Now I would've waited until it died and then bagged it up - would've been cheaper but I guess at least we ended its suffering.
I'm about to try un screw the ubend under my sink with 0 plumbing knowledge hoping I can somehow get the snake unstuck.
If it makes you feel better all the u-bends at the big box store were specifically for under the sink, so at least you'll have that going for you.