[BigV]

so. gross.

I had them visit my house a while back and the machine they used was about the size of a washing machine. it had distance markers on the 3/4" - 1" snake (??) and he fed it into the main cleanout in the main waste stack in the basement. Gah, the smell was utterly foul. He also found roots *inside* the sewer line. he said that the sewer lines in this area, from back in the day, were made of concrete and that they were ... porous? at any rate, the roots sensed their delicious cargo of moisture and nutrients and proceeded accordingly, that is, into the pipe. the roots cut off by the blade and hauled back when the snake was retracted (DO NOT TOUCH!!) looked like hair. black hair. that's enough (with enough of them) to slow the drain and cause a blockage like you described. he said he paid out enough line to reach to the center of the street from my basement wall, well beyond the reach in distance and diameter of any drain snaking tool I have. I have a fifty footer that I can drive with my drill or by hand, and that wouldn't have even reached the trouble. that's a long column of black water; fuck, I might even want to discard the snake after a trip through that. so fucking gross.