Sewer Cleaning: Ending the Scourge of ‘Blown Toilets’

For the operators cleaning municipal sewer, storm and sanitary lines, dreaded “blown toilets” can quickly become a community clean-up and public relations nightmare.

An innovative new type of nozzle is specifically designed to prevent blown toilets at a fraction of the cost of high-end models. This makes it affordable for entire fleets.

“A ‘blown toilet’ can leave sewer material on a homeowner’s floor and toilet seat, raising tensions in the community,” says Dan Story, operations manager at KEG Technologies. KEG Technologies is a manufacturer of sewer and storm lines products including Tier 1 to Tier 3 nozzles, chain cutters, floor cleaners, and camera nozzle systems.

Blown toilets typically occur when the operator rushes up the sewer line with little or no cleaning going up the line on the first pass. This results in excessive piles of debris on the return trip through the same stretch of sewer line. Air flow from the jet nozzle then compresses between the nozzle and the debris, creating significant positive pressure, according to Story.

“When the debris passes by a home’s service line, the pressurized air blasts up and out of the service line, causing a blown toilet,” explains Story.

Other circumstances, such as failing to open the upstream manhole when cleaning sewer pipes, can also multiply the incidence of blown toilets. This can increase pressure in the system. It leads to blown residential toilets when sewer gases flow up the laterals and cause sewage water to overflow.

Now, an industry innovator has redesigned and renamed a specialty nozzle used to prevent blown toilets, making it widely available at a fraction of the cost. Additionally, it offers greater mobility.

The new nozzle, which one Los Angeles area municipality has found affordable to use on several of its sewer trucks, offers the tantalizing possibility of eliminating blown toilets. Indeed, it might eliminate blown toilets throughout the sewer cleaning industry.

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