Venting Frustrations

There is nothing worse than badly draining sinks, tubs, and showers, not to mention toilets that need three flushes to finish the job.

A call to a drain cleaning company did not help. They looked down the drains of the three year old home with a camera scope, all the way to the city sewer and found no blockages. The home owners were perplexed and called us for a “consultation“ to look at their plumbing.

The ranch home with unfinished basement made it easy to inspect the drains which all looked good. Then we went up on the roof and the culprit was obvious, the plumbing vent pipe was capped (sealed) from when the drains were pressure tested for leaks.

All it took was to break open the cap on the top of the bent pipe to let air in and everything worked properly. The cap worked the same as putting your finger over the top of a drinking straw in a glass of soda, you can lift it out of the glass without loosing the liquid, take your finger away and it drains out.

Vent pipes must be opened after the plumbing inspection.