I have a house built in the early 1900s with 3 inch cast iron sewer lines in the basement. There is a horizontal cleanout just before it exits the foundation with a 3 inch cherne gripper plug. It is dripping from the the bottom of the plug when using the shower upstairs. The only fixtures that use this line is a sink, toilet and a shower/tub. The lines were just derooted in may as well and I ran root killer in the lines about 2 weeks ago. Is it possible that this plug is just faulty or am I looking at a backup? I pulled the plug about 20 minutes after the shower was ran for 20 minutes and the line was clear.

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run the shower for 10 minutes and flush the toilet while still running

if no problem = no stoppage

if toilet 'sluggish' snake piping

BUT

the plug 'should' not leak even if there is a stoppage

you can try:

tightening the nut
replacing the plug with like

OR

have a standard screw on clean-out plug installed by an actual plumber

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"Measure Twice & Cut Once" - Retired U.A. Local 1 & 638

Thanks for the reply. The toilet flushed great after 10 minutes of running the tub. I did run I to the basement to pull the plug to see if it was backed up - dangerous I know lol. I had had big garbage can on standby. The 3 inch pipe was about 1/4 or so still filled with water.

'partial' stoppage

OR

back pitch




see if the pipe STAYS 1/4 full after no usage to determine if back pitched

==============================================

"Measure Twice & Cut Once" - Retired U.A. Local 1 & 638

Partial stoppage somewhere. The water was gone about an hour later. This morning, both my sewer lines that exit the basement were dripping at the cleanouts. They connect to the mainline about 50 feet away from the house. Each line in the basement have a shower on it and both showers were running at the same time this morning. Guess I will be calling a plumber! Thanks for the help!



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