 My name's Carl Peterson. I'm with the Ag and Biosystems Engineering Department in North Coast State University and also work with the Extension Service at NDSU. And today what I'm going to talk about is plugging drains in homes to prevent sewage backup. It's a pretty big issue when it comes to times of flooding or even in times of summer when you get some some high rains that can possibly backup sewage systems into homes. What I'm going to talk about today is what could cause it, where it could come from, and exactly some areas where you should look for in home where you could have some sewage backup and also some different techniques of plugging those holes where that sewage backup can occur. Start with the why this could possibly have, why you could possibly have sewage backup in your house. If the sewage treatment plant in the city or even a portion of the city is overwhelmed by water from either flooding or storms, then that could possibly back up that system and it could back up into your house. The potential for that could be sewage in your house. We can imagine why that could be a problem damaged to the building. It could be smell and clean up and also disease as a potential. When should we plug our drains in a house to prevent that from happening? Well, the wind should be constant. There's a couple of new things newer homes are built with backwater or backflow check valves built into them. Older homes will need to have those plugged as we go. And the main thing is to prepare for that before the flooding ever even occurs. We'll give a couple examples. We're here in a basement in a home and I can show you an example right over here. They have built into the home. It's called a backflow backwater valve. It's built right in and it's got a cap on it and what you need to do is to make sure to check these things periodically at least once a year because you can have different kind of corrosion in here. Things can get caught behind this flap here. This is the actual flap that sits in the pipe and the water, the sewage from the house comes in and pushes that valve open and heads out to the sewage treatment plant. If water starts to back up, it backs up and hits that valve. It sits and it's stuck right there and this cap is actually what holds that valve in place. So if this cap isn't seated in place, this flapper can pop right out and stay out. So you have to make sure this is clean around it and you have to make sure that cap is seated in there properly. And make sure this cap is on correctly and you don't want to over tighten these because you can't break the cap. But just make sure to finger tighten that and check that valve. For homes that don't have these systems in it, the main thing, the best thing that you can possibly do is prepare ahead of time because if a flood is imminent or if a city announces that it's time to plug those drains, you don't want to be scrambling around then trying to find the right size plugs because there's going to be a lot of other people that have already picked those up and you may not have time to get to a hardware store. You want to have those plugs at the drains ready to go. And here's a prime example. We've got this plug that's the right size plug for this floor drain pipe over here. We've already removed the screws from this floor drain. The problem is it doesn't sit in there and it won't seat. So once I tighten it down, it still doesn't stay in that drain. So we needed to actually have a deeper plug for this one particular location here. And that's just an example of how you want to get these plugs ahead of time and test them to make sure they'll actually fit in there and tighten them up. It sits in there and I can push it in better. Tighten it down to hand tighten so it doesn't break. And that seats nice and tight and that'll hold that possibility for backflow up into that valve right there. Okay, here's another area where the homeowner definitely needs to prepare in advance. And here's a perfect example of that. This homeowner in the last flood situation they had here, they tried to plug this drain and they couldn't get the proper size drain plug to fit in there because of this housing on the outside of this is a typical washing machine hookup. You got the hot and cold water and then the drain hose coming out. What they actually had to do what they did here they cut the pipe off and then they were able to plug the pipe over here in this way instead. So these are the situations we need to check that ahead of time. A lot of times one of the best situations is if you glue a cap on there, a threaded cap that threaded cap can be threaded right out of it. It can be sitting you could leave it sitting right in here. All you have to do is pull the drain hose out, thread that cap in and you're good to go. We're obviously in a shower and the shower drain that can be fairly easy or can be a little more difficult. It depends on the makeup of the shower. This one here is real simple because it's simply the cap simply prized right off. This one's not screwed down and it's not sealed. Some of them will actually have caulk around it. You might have to cut that loose and then just get the right size plug that fits in there and tightens down to seal that drain off. Showers and bathtubs and basements can definitely be some of the more trickier situations. That's why you want to prepare in advance. An example is if you can't get this grate off of here to get this plug in there, you might have to get a little more creative. In some ways that you could possibly do it or you could you know a piece of rubber or people have even used a rubber ball that's bigger than the diameter. This one's a little bit bigger from this plug but what you can do, you can wedge that on top of that and somehow wedge that, brace that to the floor. You could take a board, put it on top of this and brace that to the ceiling. Make sure you're covering the floor choice and you don't damage the plaster on top with what you brace it down with. Bathtubs can present special problems because of the way the different drains are and also the overflow valves, the overflow drain that's on them. First of all, this drain plug, some things you can do is you can possibly just press this drain plug into place but you need to brace that somehow. You can either take a board and push it up against the ceiling or put you know only some people have used heavy sandbags on top to make sure to hold that plug in place. You can unscrew these and I've already unscrewed this one because they're not always the easiest to unscrew. You have to get them just right or else the screw that's inside doesn't turn. You lift it up partially and then you can unscrew those. What happens a lot is that capple unscrews so you won't be able to pull it off. So that takes a little bit of effort to try to figure out exactly the right way to get that to come out. This one sensibly has screws that I pulled out already. And then to plug that drain, you simply get the proper size drain plug that fits into that to plug that in. If you can't get that out, that's where you need to be creative. If say for instance a lot of times that can be stripped and it can be stuck in there, you'll have to come up with a different way to plug that. Possibly cover it like we said before with a piece of rubber and hold that down or take towels or whatever it takes to put pressure on that and make sure that that plug doesn't come out. Because you can push that plug in and hold that pressure that plug in but you have to brace it somehow. The other dilemma is this overflow drain right here. And you can see that I've already pulled these screws out. This drain here, it actually goes down and back so these longer valves don't fit in there properly. What you can buy is they do sell marine type drain plugs that are really shallow, they're really narrow, they don't have the top, they don't have these top screws on them. They're simply a bolt on top. You shove it in and use a socket or a pair of pliers to tighten that bolt down. It squeezes that rubber gasket and fills that hole. Otherwise you're going to have to be creative to try to figure out a way to plug that. Here's a typical sink and some of the issues you can face with that. With the drain plug built into it, you could possibly put that down and hold that drain somehow brace that to hold that in there. The dilemma comes in when you have the overflow over here. You need also to make sure you plug that. The preferred method is to just ignore those all together and go underneath the sink. And what you do as you go underneath and these new sink drains, they're simply hand tightened PVC and make sure to start with to put a bucket underneath. These should be simply hand tightened. You just loosen those. We'll loosen this one. And this pipe here is actually threaded so I can buy a cap made specifically for this that screws that threads right on to that and that holds that secure. If I can't find one of those caps or I don't have anything available, I can get a plug that actually fits inside of that drain also. We're in a local hardware store to demonstrate how we plug toilet drains. Sometimes toilets can be the hardest because you actually have to remove the device. Toilets have a little bit of extra weight to them and the drains can be different sizes anywhere between three to four inches or other sizes too. So let's show a couple of things. The first thing you definitely want to make sure to do is you want to make sure to shut off the water to the toilet. So we'll start out with that. We'll close the valve. It'll be under attached underneath the toilet. It's always pretty generally obvious to see. The next thing you want to do is go ahead and flush the toilet. That empties the bowl, plus all that water out of there once you have the water turned off because you're going to have to pick this thing up. And the other next thing you want to do is try to get as much water out of this bowl as possible. A couple of ways to do that. You can take a bucket of water from the sink, pour in there. That'll make that toilet flush. That water stays out of there and then you can either soak it out or just leave the last little bit of water in there. To remove the toilet, the first thing we need to do is pull off this decorative cover. And it may be silicone down or it might be there might be putty that's holding that on. So you might have to pry that off a little bit. You'll find a bolt underneath. You'll take that bolt and you'll undo the nut holding that bolt down. Hopefully there's a washer also holding that in. And now let's do the same thing on the other side of the toilet. And then your toilet's ready to go. You also have to make sure to check around the bottom of the bowl. A lot of times these things will be caught in place. There might be some sealant holding this down. So you might need to take a putty knife and cut that away to loosen the toilet to be able to move that toilet out from underneath. We've just removed the toilet. And what you're going to see underneath is this bolt here is actually seated into a flange in the floor like this. And this is where the toilet flushes down through this hole here. There's going to be a lot of wax around this because there's a wax seal that seals this to the toilet to keep gases and different fluids escaping from the toilet. The first thing you need to do is clean that wax off there to make sure you get a good seal with the plug. The other thing that's a good idea to have some paper newspaper or cardboard around when you pull this toilet off that you can set it on so you don't make a mess on the floor in your bathroom. When you've got that cleaned off make sure you get the right size plug in this one. We got a four inch hole so we've got a four inch plug. Tighten that plug down until it's finger tight. And what you can also do if you want to make extra sure because there will be some pressure or is the potential to have some pressure on this is some people have taken a board and they've drilled holes in it where the bolts match up. Lay that board over top of that plug to hold it in there and then put the nuts back on to hold that board in place. It depends on the kind of plug you have also. When you're ready to reinstall your toilet you'll pull the plug out. You'll get the proper type of wax ring. This is the other important thing to buy ahead of time because if there is a potential for a flood these things are going to be hard to find so make sure you have extra wax rings ready for when you're ready to put your toilet back on so you don't have to wait for the make sure that they're in stock. You'll take that wax ring the specific one for your specific situation. Pull whatever plastic covering there is on there and this has to be applied to the toilet first before it's applied to the floor. So you turn your toilet over you'll apply this ring to the bottom side of the toilet push it into place and then you'll pick your toilet up and put it over and that'll seal into the hole. Put a little bit of pressure on the toilet maybe turn it back and forth a little bit and then use body pressure to push it into place. Reinstall the bowls turn the water back on and you're ready to go. Here's a good example of why you have to plan ahead we're in an aisle here of the plumbing aisle the hardware store and look at the examples there's all kinds of different sizes of pipes and connections and it all depends on the specific situation in your house their standard size of pipes for different applications in a home but the problem is those standard pipes have changed throughout the years. So I'm not going to have the luxury of carrying my pipe or my drain with me I'm going to have to measure that before I come to the store. Here's an example here I can find this this is possibly coming out say this is my drain coming out from underneath my sink I have the p-trap hanging underneath I simply remove the pipe there I find the right size cap that'll screw right onto that and seal that drain off nicely. If I don't have threaded pipes I just have a straight hole I also have to find the right size plug that fits that as long as I plan ahead