Of course this happens on Memorial Day. I'm looking for advice on the cost-efficiency of my planned course of action, and any other suggestions.
I have a back up somewhere in my houses drainage system. In the bedroom wing of my house, the toilets drain slowly and as they do raw sewage (e.g. shit and water) flows our of the bathtub/shower drains. Plunging the toilets does not work, probably because the blog is far down the drain and thus there are multiple water outlets (push plunger in one, pressure relieve in the other). Thus, It looks like the main drain line is clogged. I checked with a neighbor to make sure they weren't back up either (e.g. clog in the city line vs mine) and they have no clog).
My instinct on this one is to wait until tomorrow (to avoid holiday/off-hours fees) and bring in a plumber. It will be costly to hire a plumber, but trying to snake out a drain on my own may be risky. For one, I'm short on time because I'm leaving town in a few days. Also, I have an older home which means the drain lines are cast iron and there is not an obvious clean-out to use (there possibly is one right where the drain line exits my house and goes to the city line... but it does not look like the more modern clean-outs i've seen online).
Right now I have covered the waste water with Lysol in an attempt to mitigate contamination of the room (slowly the water is draining back down the drains). In theory I could plug up all of the drains that I'm not plunging, and then plunge, and I might be able to dislodge the huge impacted turd (or whatever the fuck is stuck in that line), but I"m not sure where to get drain plugs. One toilet has a weird shape in the 'mouth' and forming a tight seal with a plunger is tricky. Also, the shower drain is 'fancy' and is hard to describe, but it will be similarly difficult to form a tight seal on it.
Any ideas? This one of those things to just leave to the professionals?
I do have a water back-up rider on my homeowner's insurance, but it only covers repairing damage to the house; not the costs of getting rid of the clog.