Hello My basement drain has been backing up lately when doing laundry, flushing downstairs toilet or running water into laundry tun. The drain is about 3 feet away from our laundry tub if this helps. I had a plumber come in and clear the main drain all the way to the street and he didn't really find anything (I was worried about tree roots) but he said it was all clear and the problem went away, That was 2 days ago, and when my wife bathed our daughter tonight the drain backed up again. If I flush the downstairs toilet or run any water i can see the water level in the drain raise ans very slowly go down over time. There is no sewage smell, is there something that may be causing this that the plumber missed? I handy but when it comes to plumbing it's not something I dabble in quite often. I rented a snake from home depot and put it in the floor drain and went 50 feet without a problem also. What am I missing? I hope some of you plumbing pros can help! Thanks in advance for any info!

 

O.K for anyone else with this problem, here is what I think was the problem. I took a plunger and went crazy on the floor drain which caused water to come up in the downstairs shower, then I went plunger crazy on our toilet that has been kind of slow lately, well that's when it got interesting. This little move sent a massive clump of toilet paper and (other stuff) up through the drain in the laundry room. ya it wasn't pretty and it wasn't going anywhere and that's when I went plunger crazy on the drain again and then there was a huge suction this time and it sucked all the water back down the drain! Toilet flushes great now better then ever and I emptied a full bathtub without incident, there must have been a clog somewhere in the toilet and somehow backed up the water. So far so good I hope this is the end of my problem, wish me luck!

 

If you flush the toilet downstairs and you get water up in the drains then it is in your main.

They may have snaked with a blade bit. You need a proper cutting bit. A blade only restores flow.

Also any professional company would have put a camera down the line. If this was not offered it was a take the money and run company.

You need a camera to know whats going on.

Mike NJ

 

What Mike wrote or it could have been a partial clog in the main before the point where the plumber did the cleaning. If he ran the snake from the house to the main and did NOT snake back towards the house then THAT could have been the problem.