Ep. 5 Drain Cleaning and Unclogging

Show Notes

[00:00:00] Sherman Hu: Welcome to the 10-minute podcast powered by Kingdom Plumbing and Heating. I have Clay Bristow here, in his truck, the only mobile podcast that is happening in Chilliwack, BC.

[00:00:12] Clay Bristow: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

K-60 Auger to work on unclogging main lines & can go up to 150 feet

[00:00:16] Sherman Hu: You’re welcome. Hey, you were telling me about a new toy. I want to hear all about it.

[00:00:21] Clay Bristow: Yeah. As you may be aware and hopefully our listeners are aware, we do drain cleaning and unclogging. Drain cleaning, some people don’t know what that means. It just means we unclog drains. I actually put on the side of my van drain cleaning slash unclogging, so that it was a little bit easier for people to understand what we were talking about when we say that.

[00:00:38] But drain cleaning is essentially a service that we provide, whether it be your shower or your bathtub that plugs up and it stops draining into your kitchen. That’s a very common one.

[00:00:48] Or you got a toy stuck in your toilet because your kids flush something down there.

[00:00:53] Or maybe just nothing works in the house and you have a big dual plug somewhere in the manger. We deal with all that.

[00:00:59] So [00:01:00] yeah, it was just talking about, we just got a new auger. So we had a K-50 auger before that was good for kitchens and doing a lot of stuff like that. I could go about 80 feet with that one. And I was using it to do the main lines, but I’ve upgraded now to the K-60 to do the main lines and we can go up to 150 feet with that one.

[00:01:17] Sherman Hu: Wow.

[00:01:17] Clay Bristow: That one auger’s really well. So very excited about that. Very excited to have a tool that’s a bit easier to use for the big clogs.

[00:01:27] Sherman Hu: Okay. So it’s a new and shiny auger.

[00:01:30] Clay Bristow: Yeah. It’s very shiny. Going to get really dirty very soon though.

[00:01:34] Sherman Hu: And you’ve already had a chance to use it?

[00:01:36] Clay Bristow: Not yet. I almost used it today, but they decided to do something else. Very soon. I’m sure. It doesn’t take long.

[00:01:45] Sherman Hu: Okay.

[00:01:46] Clay Bristow: When you’re putting stuff down a clogged pipe, it doesn’t take long for it to get very dirty.

How often do you get called for unclogging jobs or drain cleaning jobs?

[00:01:50] Sherman Hu: Yes. Yes. How often do you get called for unclogging jobs or drain cleaning jobs?

[00:01:56] Clay Bristow: I’d say a couple a week, at least. Yeah. We get calls for [00:02:00] that. Normally, kitchens. The kitchen is the big one. People put down bacon grease, food garbage, sauces, and all cut soaps so the kitchen drains, they clog up pretty quickly.

[00:02:11] Sherman Hu: Hey, today is Wednesday. So there could be one lucky winner. First-time use of the new K something 60.

[00:02:20] Clay Bristow: K-60 auger-ing tool.

[00:02:23] Sherman Hu: You are the winner.

[00:02:25] Clay Bristow: Yeah, you’re the winner. You could be lucky number one.

Customer Story: Auger discovered broken plastic

[00:02:30] Sherman Hu: That’s awesome.

[00:02:31] What’s anything else exciting this week, as far as customer-type jobs that you want to share?

[00:02:36] Clay Bristow: As far as drain cleaning goes, drain cleaning is one of those jobs where we could throw the auger down, and we can get the water to recede, but we don’t always know exactly what was wrong with the pipe, or if there’s more issues with the pipe than what we could see.

[00:02:49] Sometimes, I do have a camera as well, and so we send a camera down. I can send my camera about 300 feet, although that’s really only if the pipe’s pretty straight, if [00:03:00] there’s not too many bends. But yeah, I have a locator, so we can locate the head where you can see how far down the pipe is. We can see what’s in the pipe.

[00:03:06] So recently, just this past week, I had a client where I had been there before and we had augured it. And we had cleared it, but I had said to them, I don’t know what was wrong with the pipe. And if this issue persists, then we should look at maybe camera-ing the line, to see if there’s anything more serious going on.

[00:03:22] I actually had to go back there last week because they did start to clog again. So we snaked it again, got it to recede, then we camera’d it. What we found was there was a large piece of, I’m not even sure what it was, but it looked like it was quite thick, about an inch, maybe half an inch to an inch thick and it was taking up almost all of the piping, all the four-inch pipe. It was almost the same diameter. Stuff was getting clogged on this and obviously a big issue, so I was able to, with my camera, even just push it, keep pushing it down the line.

[00:03:51] But we eventually got to a place outside of the building, thankfully, where I found that the pipe was compromised in such a way [00:04:00] that the pipe was what we call backgraded. Meaning, if your pipe’s meant to be sloped like this, it was sloped the other way. So water was pooling inside the pipe. And so, I was able to use my camera and do some spray paint on the ground for them to tell them how deep it was. And they were able to hire an excavation company to dig it up and fix the piping.

[00:04:19] Sometimes that can be what it needs, most of the time we just gotta send the auger through and it clears everything out and you’re all good to go. But in those situations where the problem persists, it’s good to get the camera done.

[00:04:31] Sherman Hu: It was not bacon-wrapped scallops?

[00:04:34] Clay Bristow: No, not that one. Not that one. I don’t know what that was. Looked like a piece of broken plastic or something. I’m not sure.

[00:04:41] Sherman Hu: Oh!

[00:04:42] Clay Bristow: Big issue. Lots of stuff gets into drains and you wouldn’t think how did that get in there? And we find that.

Should I use Drano for drain cleaning or drain unclogging?

[00:04:48] Sherman Hu: That’s great. It was great. As we wrap up today’s episode, anything that you want to share with our viewers and listeners about drain cleaning or drain unclogging?

[00:04:57] Clay Bristow: Yes. Do not use Drano, please. I do not [00:05:00] recommend it. People ask me all the time. What should we do? Should we do Drano? Should we do this? Blah, blah, blah.

[00:05:04] The reason I recommend against using those kinds of chemicals is that

00:05:08 the fumes that it causes are bad for you to breathe in.

00:05:13 It’s bad for the environment. It’s really bad for the environment.

00:05:17 It’s also bad for your drainage. Actually, if it sits in the pipes for too long, it can start to eat away at your piping.

[00:05:24] And lastly, (D) it often doesn’t work, so it’s pointless in the first place.

[00:05:29] I’ve always found that the most effective way to deal with a clog is to send an auger down with a proper thick head, a chew up, and greases or residue or whatever. And the snake is of course quite flexible, so it makes run on all the corners gets everything and you’re back to square one, brand new piping.

[00:05:46] Sherman Hu: Well, thanks for joining us on today’s episode, powered by Kingdom Plumbing and Heating with Clay Bristow. You can always find him on his website or the telephone number on this video. You’ll be able to see it and until next week, [00:06:00] join us again as we catch up with Clay.

[00:06:01] Clay Bristow: Awesome! Thank you.