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[Shop-talk] can I safely heat up a black iron clean out?

To: shop-talk@autox.team.net
Subject: [Shop-talk] can I safely heat up a black iron clean out?
From: Mark Andy <marka@maracing.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:23:01 -0500 (EST)
Howdy,

I have a clean out that I want to remove, but its been in place for 60 
years or so:

Here's a picture:

http://www.maracing.com/misc/cleanout.JPG

It looks to me like the cleanout plug is threaded into a fitting that's 
then perhaps leaded into the Y fitting.  If that's right, I'm afraid to 
heat up the fitting with a torch to get it to loosen up.

But I'm the typical DIY person with no real experience.

Anyone know what I should do to get the cleanout plug out?

If you're curious, here's the whole story...

Our hose has a septic system.  We've got two 1k gallon tanks, then a pump 
that pumps the liquid that comes out of the second tank to a leech field 
out behind the house.

Today, my wife noticed that the toilets were bubbling in the bowl which 
the washing machine drained, and then the washing machine drain overflowed 
a bit before she got it shut off.  The drain pipe has the washing machine 
at the end, then a bathroom (toilet/show/sink drains), then a bit of a run 
to another bathroom (toilet/sink/shower), then a run out of the house 
where it meets another drain pipe coming off the kitchen (under a concrete 
slab, which I desperately hope won't matter), then a run to the first 
1k gallon septic tank, then a short run to the 2nd 1k gallon septic tank, 
then a short run to the pump which pumps all the way around the house to 
the leech field.

We had the septic tanks pumped this summer (after about five years of use 
since they were last cleaned) and the guy said they looked great.

The pump has an alarm on it and its showing green.  When it was first 
installed (five years ago, the alarm worked.  I also went out and pulled 
open the top cover on the pump and I could hear water trickling in, but 
couldn't see anything beyond that (presumably the pump and well itself is 
under another cover at the bottom of that hole).

In playing around, I initially thought I had a partial / mostly blockage 
on the main line that has the two bathrooms and the washer, after the 
second bathroom described above (the one closest to the final Y under the 
concrete patio).  The shower in that bathroom had water/crap in it, and 
when I flushed the toilet, the water bubbled in the shower.  However, when 
I ran the kitchen sink, I didn't get anything happening.  If I waited a 
good while (1/2 hour or more), the water level in the tub would drop to 
nothing.

There's a cleanout on the small pipe that gets the 2nd bathroom's sinks, 
so I took that out and then ran a sewer rod (flat 1/2" or so steel tape 
with an arrowhead on the end) in there a good ways.  My guess is that it 
went all the way to the Y under the concrete.  It fought me a little near 
the toilet drain, so I thought maybe that was the breakage.  Put the 
cleanout back in and ran the shower for a long while and it was good for 
quite a while, but then the toilet started bubbling.  Additionally, this 
time I ran the kitchen sink (on the other side of the Y under the concrete 
patio) with the bathroom cleanout out and after a long while (10 minutes?) 
water came out of the bathroom cleanout.

So now I'm thinking that the blockage is after the Y under the concrete 
(or I moved it there).  And I want to remove the cleanout plug above 
because that's a straight shot all the way to the septic tank.

Which led me to the question above.

Of course, I'm no particular expert here, so if I'm missing something, I'd 
surely appreciate the help!

Mark
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