Is a cesspool the same as a septic tank?
My guess is a blockage somewhere along the drain that allows water to flow slowly. One or two loads will fill the open portion nearest to the washer, then the water starts to back up. After a period of time with no laundry, the backed-up water slowly drains away.
We had a similar situation in our house. The culprit was our maple tree that found its way into a cracked drain pipe and essentially filled a 6" drain with a mass of roots. The solution was replacement of the drain under the basement floor, for a wad of cash that could have filled the pipe all over again.
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I’ve had great success using a wet/dry shop vac to battle clogged drains. The only downside is facing the unspeakable horrors that it draws up from the depths below.
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True! Let me tell you about the time I snaked out a shower drain and broke through the corroded pipe under the house, and did not realize it for months. It drained just great, though! 
I’ve since re-plumbed the whole thing with ABS when I built my grey-water recycling system.
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Sounds kinda kinky…
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It could be an issue with soap suds stacking up in the pipe, or it could be that the pump in the new machine has a higher flow rate than your old one.
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yeesh. I just bought a house this year, and that’s precisely the kind of problem that I never want to have.
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They make those things that run on CO2, anybody got a version that runs on compressed air? If you have a compressor it means no cartridges to buy and unlike the water bladder ones if it slips you don’t get a mess.
I’ve resorted to one of those bladders for a kitchen sink clog. It worked without apparent undue effects, and I see them everywhere so assume they’re not terribly dangerous with all but the most locked in clog, but the thought of pressurizing a drain line directly from the main still scares the hell out of me.
For simple hair clogs in sinks and tubs close to the drain opening, one of these is pretty effective.
Procedure as follows:
- Long-Haired Family Member: “The bathtub isn’t draining again.”
- Short-To-No-Haired Family Member: (audible sigh) “Okay, I’ll take care of it,” (deploys Cobra-Products-Zip-It Cleaning Tool).
- STNHFM: “Wow, look at what came out of there.”
- LHFM: “NO, EWW!”
Instructions say to dispose of it after use, but they haven’t met me.
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Typically the low countries.
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Got mine new in box from Craigslist for $400. That’s approximately 2 1/2 visits from the local Poopsmith
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We had a bad shower drain last week. First half-empty bottle of Draino did nothing. I attacked it a couple of days later with a plunger. Nothing. Then got some super-strength Draino that warned me that all living beings within 100km should wear respirators, and that did the trick.
I’ve got the exact model of wet-dry vac pictured, and wish I had thought of it!
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Shower and sink are not the problem in my house, well sink it all gunks up around the stopper so I just remove that and wipe it down and run some boiling water down it before putting things back.
It is the basement drain and it needs a snake on a regular basis and I may have to break down and get a long powered one like above. I fear the neighbors bamboo may be clogging the line from the house out to the main line.
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The moment I realized that a fully loaded shop vac becomes a poo fountain was, regrettably, milliseconds after my forward momentum carried my face into the ejecta cone as I leaned over it to investigate the change in the motor’s pitch.
To my credit, I didn’t immediately become a barf fountain.
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Surprised nobody has mentioned baking soda and vinegar. I will do this every couple of months for the bathroom sink and shower as preventive maintenance.
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Oh yeah! That’s some high-grade tool porn, there! Me want!
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The funny thing is that I keep my shop van right next to the basement utility sink and somehow I still didn’t hit on that idea until after I’d just gone through at least a bottle and a half of drain cleaner and a futile battle with a plumbing snake trying to de-clog it.
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Determine if the slow drainage affects other drains in the house. Run all sinks at once etc.
If yes, then you should hit the clean-out(s) with a snake (or water bladder as mentioned). If you have trees next to the house, as someone mentioned above, you might have roots intruding into the pipes.
If no, then the slow clog is between the laundry room and where it meets the main outflow, and you should be able to give it a good snaking – run the snake all the way in, and then out several times.
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What if you sucked up a pocket of methane???
