Last year, I gave Joe The Plumber the rooter machine I purchased two years ago, since I had kinked the cable on a resistant tree root, and thus it was pretty useless. Nevertheless, since Joe has no place to store 'his' machine, I'm still in possession of it.
Last year, Joe cut off the kinked part and tried to affix a cutter at the end of the bare cable. He lost the cutting head in Marcia's sewer, however, so the end of the cable was bare. In addition, the air-pressure switch to the rooter machine sprung a leak, and could be operated only with temporary seals (generated generally by spitting on the switch and using Cling Wrap to try to make an effective seal).
So, even though the cable no longer had a head, and was very hard to operate continuously, and thus was very inefficient at its task, I decided to use it anyway, since it meant I didn't have to rent and transport a machine to the site. Tonight, I also bought a new hand-operated snake at Home Depot that featured a thicker cable.
It was slow work, featuring multiple insertions. The snake seemed to be a failure, but eventually the spastic mechanical cable was able to rip out enough roots that I was able to clear enough roots so I could run a garden hose's worth of water down the sewage line without a backup. Frustrated with all this, and hesitant because it's poisonous to fish, at the end, I also added some poisonous copper sulfate into the line, to soak the roots overnight and stop their regrowth.
As long as the sewage line is in a state of decay, these crises will recur. Most sewage lines in the Curtis Park neighborhood date roughly to 1940, with lifetimes expiring in 70 years at most (2010 at most). So, it's downhill from now on, and not just me either, but since I can't afford a replacement pipe, I'll fight to the end to save what I've got.
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