Chased a drain clog for 4 hours in a 12 story office building

Got a call about slow floor drains on the 3rd floor. Snaked it for an hour, nothing. Pulled the cleanout and it was bone dry. Turned out a maintenance guy dropped a roll of paper towels down a vent pipe on the roof last month. Had to go floor by floor with a camera to find the blockage. Anyone dealt with a clog that wasn't where you expected?

2 comments

2 Comments

jakep241mo ago

Wait, a whole roll of paper towels dropped down a VENT pipe? How does that even happen without someone noticing? That's wild, man. I've spent hours chasing mystery clogs but nothing that far removed from where the problem showed up. You must have been ready to tear your hair out after 4 hours of floor by floor camera work. Yeah, I had one where a kid flushed a toy car and it got stuck in the main stack on the first floor, but nothing that required a rooftop detective mission.

michaela161mo ago

And a whole roll of paper towels at that @jakep24, not just a few sheets. That's the kind of thing you'd think someone would notice missing from the janitor's closet or whatever. Four hours of camera work, that's some serious patience. I once spent two hours snaking a line that turned out to be a toy dinosaur, and I was ready to quit right then.