W being back everything is to heck in a handcart.
Have to keep on waiting to "help" her and sort things out for her.
She'd lost her passport, I asked her if she had put it in the box with all the other valuables as usual, but no, she had to search everywhere panicking more and more, so I fished out the box and sure enough there it was. "Oh" she says "I must have done the right thing!" Now waiting for her to finish her "toilette" so I can put her shoes on then she can go and do the shopping while I carry on and play with the drains a bit more.
We normally shop together, so this means I had to sort stuff out like pin number for the credit card, etc.
By the time I have finished I might has well have done the shopping myself.

Modded the drain cleaning brass pipe end as per the one on Youtube, by drilling a small hole right in the end.
I looked again at the prices of all this.
Karcher K2, just under €100
The longish tube with the connection on one end and the brass jet doofuss on tother end, just under €80.

Yep I know the Karcher is the bottom end of the market but I seriously hardly ever use the one I've got back in blighty so I don't see myself using this one much either.

Who the flip is ripping us all off? :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
So back now to see if it is any better!
Have a good day folks! :):):)
 
Stanleysteamer said:
W being back everything is to heck in a handcart.
Have to keep on waiting to "help" her and sort things out for her.
She'd lost her passport, I asked her if she had put it in the box with all the other valuables as usual, but no, she had to search everywhere panicking more and more, so I fished out the box and sure enough there it was. "Oh" she says "I must have done the right thing!" Now waiting for her to finish her "toilette" so I can put her shoes on then she can go and do the shopping while I carry on and play with the drains a bit more.
We normally shop together, so this means I had to sort stuff out like pin number for the credit card, etc.
By the time I have finished I might has well have done the shopping myself.

Modded the drain cleaning brass pipe end as per the one on Youtube, by drilling a small hole right in the end.
I looked again at the prices of all this.
Karcher K2, just under €100
The longish tube with the connection on one end and the brass jet doofuss on tother end, just under €80.

Yep I know the Karcher is the bottom end of the market but I seriously hardly ever use the one I've got back in blighty so I don't see myself using this one much either.

Who the flip is ripping us all off? :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
So back now to see if it is any better!
Have a good day folks! :):):)
Click to expand...
The most successful jetting attachments for clearing drains do have fwd jets but usually only 1 or 2 and 3 or 4 rearward jets to help propel it forwards. Jetting is definitely what the pro's use.
 
DanClarke said:
The most successful jetting attachments for clearing drains do have fwd jets but usually only 1 or 2 and 3 or 4 rearward jets to help propel it forwards. Jetting is definitely what the pro's use.
Click to expand...
Well I only put one in.
I had a go with it and helped it along by putting it down the inside of a plastic pipe so that it disn't wind all over the place before it got to the blockage.
At one point the Karcher just stopped.
Oops.
So I pulled the pipe out and tried to disconnect it from the gun, tried to disconnect the feed pipe between the Karcher and the gun, at both ends.
Was getting desperate.
I have since discovered that if there is pressure in all the lines disconnection is difficult if you have to push the item towards its connection.
Got it apart eventually. Discovered that all 4 tiny holes, plus the new one, were blocked, once cleared it worked again.
Fiddled about with it for ages, try different techniques when pushing the pipe down the drainpipe. Some worked better than others, like pushing it to the obstruction, pulling it back a fraction, pushing it forward again, sometimes pulling it back further. Very boring and not satisfying. I got a lot further than I did yessdi but still not right to the end of the pipe with the nozzle on it. So not as good as yessdi morning. Every now and then it would push water/slurry back up the plastic pipe and it became obvious that there was still a lot of coarse sand down there. Granite breaks down over time into just the sort of stuff I was pulling up.
Anyway, throughout all this it was obvious that the water was draining away somewhere so I decided to simply connect the whole system back up again and test it.
This is where I found what I thought from the beginning was the problem. When I connected the vertical part of the pipe with the right angle in it to the next vertical part of pipe, it wasn't high enough to enter the septic tank. So I am sure that at some point the two pipes separated and the outflow has been going elsewhere, meanwhile the outflow has been washing a slurry of stuff down the next pipe. How the lower pipe got to be that much lower I have no idea.
But I had enough stuff lying around spare to be able to make up at least a temporary connection. Involving a flexible pipe that normally would connect a toilet pan to the sewer pipe.
Even that only just fit, with a bit of spare pipe.
So I put the hose in the tank and let it flow. It ended up flowing down the outfall pipe, no problems and the joints didn't leak.
So I am taking that as a win, albeit maybe temporary.
I'm leaving the dug out trench as it is for the moment so I can keep an eye on it while I buy bits to make a more permanent set of fittings.
One thing I discovered is that the reason I thought there was a pebble in the down pipe turned out to be because the pipe has a turn in it, that obviously then goes down again so a sort of S bend. But it then does go further down vertically. This is where the crud has accumulated and the Karcher still couldn't clear it.
Another thing I found out was that the outflow/overflow pipe from the roof run-off reservoir tank does not do what the septic tank does, it goes away from its fitting in a slightly less than horizontal way, so no turn to the vertical at all.
So that knocked on the head the idea of digging it's non-existent down pipe clear and piggy-backing the outflow from the septic tank to it.

I think I have had enough schooldays for a while now!!.
Still, W is happier now she can shower, wash clothes etc etc normally. :):):)
 
Stanleysteamer said:
Well I only put one in.
I had a go with it and helped it along by putting it down the inside of a plastic pipe so that it disn't wind all over the place before it got to the blockage.
At one point the Karcher just stopped.
Oops.
So I pulled the pipe out and tried to disconnect it from the gun, tried to disconnect the feed pipe between the Karcher and the gun, at both ends.
Was getting desperate.
I have since discovered that if there is pressure in all the lines disconnection is difficult if you have to push the item towards its connection.
Got it apart eventually. Discovered that all 4 tiny holes, plus the new one, were blocked, once cleared it worked again.
Fiddled about with it for ages, try different techniques when pushing the pipe down the drainpipe. Some worked better than others, like pushing it to the obstruction, pulling it back a fraction, pushing it forward again, sometimes pulling it back further. Very boring and not satisfying. I got a lot further than I did yessdi but still not right to the end of the pipe with the nozzle on it. So not as good as yessdi morning. Every now and then it would push water/slurry back up the plastic pipe and it became obvious that there was still a lot of coarse sand down there. Granite breaks down over time into just the sort of stuff I was pulling up.
Anyway, throughout all this it was obvious that the water was draining away somewhere so I decided to simply connect the whole system back up again and test it.
This is where I found what I thought from the beginning was the problem. When I connected the vertical part of the pipe with the right angle in it to the next vertical part of pipe, it wasn't high enough to enter the septic tank. So I am sure that at some point the two pipes separated and the outflow has been going elsewhere, meanwhile the outflow has been washing a slurry of stuff down the next pipe. How the lower pipe got to be that much lower I have no idea.
But I had enough stuff lying around spare to be able to make up at least a temporary connection. Involving a flexible pipe that normally would connect a toilet pan to the sewer pipe.
Even that only just fit, with a bit of spare pipe.
So I put the hose in the tank and let it flow. It ended up flowing down the outfall pipe, no problems and the joints didn't leak.
So I am taking that as a win, albeit maybe temporary.
I'm leaving the dug out trench as it is for the moment so I can keep an eye on it while I buy bits to make a more permanent set of fittings.
One thing I discovered is that the reason I thought there was a pebble in the down pipe turned out to be because the pipe has a turn in it, that obviously then goes down again so a sort of S bend. But it then does go further down vertically. This is where the crud has accumulated and the Karcher still couldn't clear it.
Another thing I found out was that the outflow/overflow pipe from the roof run-off reservoir tank does not do what the septic tank does, it goes away from its fitting in a slightly less than horizontal way, so no turn to the vertical at all.
So that knocked on the head the idea of digging it's non-existent down pipe clear and piggy-backing the outflow from the septic tank to it.

I think I have had enough schooldays for a while now!!.
Still, W is happier now she can shower, wash clothes etc etc normally. :):):)
Click to expand...
So to say I am confused is really true.

So you haven’t unblocked it but connected it back up and it’s fine :vb-confused2:

J
 
marjon said:
So to say I am confused is really true.

So you haven’t unblocked it but connected it back up and it’s fine :vb-confused2:

J
Click to expand...
You are not the only one!
I don't know how blocked up it is, only that the Karcher drain nozzle can't get through all the way yet water or what goes for water coming out of a septic tank can. I have to assume that the tiny grains of gravel are big enough to have enough gaps between them to let it through.
Anyway that'll be enough until next time it blocks up when I think major digging will have to happen.
TBH, I am not sure the water/runoff that we saw when we got here and has been here the past few months has NOT occured simply because the pipes weren't connected properly. Being a normal grunt -type humand being I thought when I started, , "Drain not working, must be blocked" and acted on that.
I am now thinking, "Drain wasn't working, well it was letting outfall out but that was then accumulating in pools because it wasn't connected to the rest of the drain which although partially blocked still now seems to be working, at least, a bit."

As I said I'll keep an eye on it. After a few days of normal living I'll know how bad it is.
 
marjon said:
Not sure I would agree with it being "bottom end of the market" we have many Karcher products and all do the job, some with attachments :p .
We actually have a K7 its great.
J
Click to expand...
Yeah, well, a K7 is top of the range isn't it? I meant the K2 was the bottom end of the Karcher range, not the market. Karcher are so renowned here that they don't say jetwash they say "Karcher" like people say Hoover not vacuum cleaner.
I have yet to use it for anything else but I now have a job to do with it, cleaning up patio and back door step after a dog ran around with blood on its paw. So we'll see how good it is.
 
DanClarke said:
If you want the very bottom end of the market, try Screwfix's own-brand "Titan", no spares, not compatible with Karcher tools, no after-sales service.

"But it's cheap Sir!"
Click to expand...
Just looked, over in the UK they only have one Titan pressure washer that was cheaper than our K2.
I have a Titan chainsaw that was great, reliable, cut well, started easily. It still does all that but as fast as I pour chainsaw oil in, it runs out from somewhere. I have yet to try and take it apart to that level to see if it can be fixed.
I also bought, more or less on impulse, a Titan electric chainsaw. Couldn't argue with the price on promo. It was either £40 or £60. I tend towards £40. But I could well be wrong.
Lucky that as I will bring it over next time we come. Same length bar etc. I only usually use it for cutting logs up so they will go in the log burner.
 
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