I woke up one morning to discover that the basement in my rental home was soaked with water. It was one of those moments where my feet hit the carpet floor and were instantly drenched and I stopped for a second and thought "holy cow...the basement is flooded...what the heck am I going to do?" The worst parts about this were the facts that I knew the Landlord was out of the country for two weeks and I was the only one home in the house; all my roommates were gone home for the weekend. And one of these roommates had a room in this basement which was soaked. Including having water around their computer tower, desk, clothes, etc.The first thing I ended up doing was moving as much stuff out of the basement so that it would be away from this pool of water, especially electronic stuff and anything that would be damaged by water. Next I spent some time finding as many towels as I possibly could.
Then I took these towels to the basement and began to sop up water. Letting the towels soak up as much as possible and then wringing them out in the wash basin sink in the basement next to the washing machine.I felt like Cinderella as I spent a number of hours on my hands and knees trying to save the basement and getting rid of all this water. Believe it or not this process, along with the use of some large air fans and opening the windows (it was springtime), actually began to get rid of a lot of the water. However, there was still quite a bit of water in certain areas and I also knew not be fooled by a fairly dry carpet on top...knowing that there would certainly still be water underneath the carpet. And knowing also that this underlying water could cause the development of mold I knew I needed to get some professionals in here.
One thing to note is the fact that this water that soaked the basement was not clean water but rather dirty water, the equivalent of what you would drain down your kitchen sink and shower/bathtub. So this was another big reason of why the carpets and the basement floor would need to be cleaned.So my next move was to call in some pros. I got on the horn with a plumber to fix the drainage problem. And I looked into renting some steam cleaning equipment or hiring a carpet cleaning company.I was successful in hiring both of the above. The carpets got nice and clean.However, the more important factor to consider was that without fixing the pipes this flooding would not stop and if water was run from anywhere in the house I would be starting all over again with a soaked floor.
So as I mentioned I called a plumber to my rescue to find the problem and fix it.Shortly after arriving and hearing the story the plumber went to work. He informed me that the main problem affecting the house's piping was grease and other build up in the plumbing lines. He also told me that Custom TV Lift he had a new water jetter that would do the trick. And then he began to go to work.Water jetters are great for cleaning grease out of drainage lines because these high powered pressurized water shooters actually cut grease off of the walls of the piping and with their high pressure they flush everything on down the line. Allowing water to flow how it should.Drainage snakes can partially get rid of a grease clog as well but the problem with grease is that it is a self-healing stoppage.
Meaning that although a drainage/Water may punch a hole in the grease clog, when the snake it pulled back through the line again it will basically reseal the grease plug. So there might be only a small opening or no opening at all when trying to use a snake to clear the line for this type of clog.The high pressure water jetter will cut right through everything and blast out anything causing a clog in the drainage line; from grease to hair to food to other build up and debris. They can even be used to defrost frozen pipes, etc. When it comes to clearing grease from the line it is actually better to use cold water rather than hot because the cold water will simply "blast" away these chunks of solidified grease while hot water will "melt" the grease and cause the grease to eventually settle and congeal somewhere down the line.So in this case a water jetter saved the basement and the plumbing of the rental home. Whenever I buy my next home I am going to definitely have the plumbing lines sprayed with a water jetter as a preventative measure. Clearing away any of the things put down there by the previous owners. Unless I purchase a brand new home...in this case a water jetter will not serve me any purpose but I will always know what product to turn too when I get a large clog in my drains.