The day a plumber's snake snapped and shot back like a rocket at the Johnson & Sons job site

We were all standing around watching this 30-year veteran try to clear a clog in a 4-inch main line when the cable snapped mid-snake and whipped back through the air missing my foreman's ear by maybe 2 inches, and I swear I heard the foreman whisper 'that's my sign for the day' before walking out and nobody saw him again for 3 hours.

2 comments

2 Comments

blair_dixon15d ago

Dude that SOUNDS like a bad day waiting to happen. You ALWAYS gotta check the cable for any kinks or rust before you run it, especially on an old main line like that. I've had a snake snap on me once and it put a hole in the drywall behind me, scared the crap out of everyone. The trick is to run it slow at first and LISTEN for the cable to start binding up, then back off and work it gentle. If it fights you, stop and pull it back before it twists itself into a pretzel. Your foreman was smart to walk away for a bit, that kind of adrenaline spike needs time to settle before you touch anything else.

lucaslee15d ago

Yeah but what do you do when it's already halfway down the line and you can feel it starting to grab? Like you know that moment when the cable just starts humming different and you can tell it's about to bite into something. Do you yank it back hard or try to work it through slow? I've always been a "pull it back and try again" guy because I've seen guys force it and end up with a cable wrapped around a pipe fitting. That's a whole different kind of bad day.