I kept thinking that we had very little water that touched a small portion of wood so it has to be fine as long as we clean it and dry it.
Wood has to get pretty wet and stay wet for a long time before it starts to rot. Most likely the water absorbed while the wood was wet will disperse along the grain of the wood to raise the wood moisture content a little, but it'll then gradually evaporate from the wood.
We have a 4" cleanout that goes to a 6" crock in the front of our house.
Can you run a 6 inch cutter head into the drain piping from that "crock"? (Sorry, don't know what a "crock" is.)
He said they are 2 or 4 foot sections and each section I guess has the seam where hair like roots get in.
No, roots don't get in unless water is leaking out first. However, it could be that those roots grew into your drain piping during a drought year, and during normal years there will be little to no growth of that root. I had to have the main drain pipe from my apartment block cleared of roots, but that was back prior to 2000. So, it's not like once a root finds a leaking pipe you're going to have ongoing problems from then on.
Also, your clothes washer is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to early detection of clogging drain pipes. If you find that your toilet doesn't flush properly or your bathtub doesn't drain properly shortly after the clothes washer spins after the wash cycle, it's usually because the main drain line from your house is starting to clog up. That's because the clothes washer discharges more water into your drain piping faster than any other plumbing fixture or appliance.
Its hard to tell where the water came from, i mean i know it came out of the floor drains. Both times it was during extremely heavy rains. Both times it started during the night or morning and we woke up to find water in our basement. The first time it happened we possibly flushed the toilet and maybe used the sink but it was before we showered and whatever else. We figured we were safe after getting it snaked for 6 to 12 months, at least that what were were told. This last heavy rain we were joking that our basement was flooding not knowing that it was. We took showers and ran the dishwasher so all that ended up in our basement too. I'm sure thats why there was more water. Finally after i was done getting ready i went to look and found the water. Once the drain guy get here and cleared the line the water quickly drained out. I only wished he could have got there sooner because i was shop-vacing the water up and putting it in buckets to dump outside. Did that for a few hours til he got there, barley looked like it made a dent. Took him about 5-10 minutes.
I think you should definitely have a video survey done of your drain piping, including the pipe from your floor drain to the main drain line. That will tell you whether or no the roots are growing, and if the basement floor drains are backing up because the drain line between the floor drain p-trap and the main drain line is clogged.
Not knowing and parents never experienced this either we sucked out the traps and found marbles, pennies, nails, wood as if someone used it as a garbage. We thought maybe there was clogging because of all that.
If you're finding stuff like that in the bottom of the floor drains, then there's a very good chance the drain line from the floor drain to the main drain line is partially clogged. Regardless of whether that line is partially clogged or the main drain line is partially clogged, the result will be the same; water from the weeping tiles backing up in the floor drain.
However, the flushing of the toilet causing the water level to rise in your floor drain IS an indication of a partially clogged main drain line. Normally the line between the floor drain and the main drain line is empty, so a rise in the water level in the floor drain p-trap means that water was already backed up in your drain piping.
I live in Saint Clair Shores MI and we hear they are trying to update the lines throughout the city. I dont know what that means really but on the main road at the end of our street, it is all ripped up and they are putting in some type of new large pipe. Hopefully it somehow helps us.
You are now probably on a "combined sewer". That's where both household waste water AND street rain run off (and snow melt) all flow into the same sewer. The problem with a combined system is that they're not generally sized large enough to carry the rapid flow of water into the street drains. When you get a heavy rain, the combined sewer is where all the water from all the street drains in your entire neighbor hood drain into, and that means they have to be huge to carry the large flow of water that only lasts a short time.
By contrast, the water that comes in from the weeping tiles is spread out over hours to days after it rains, and so if it were only for household waste water and weeping tile drainage, you could make due with a much smaller sewer. Ask if they're "twinning" the sewer in your neighborhood. That means they're installing a very large storm sewer pipe and leaving the sanitary sewer (the house hold waste sewer) in place. If that's what they're doing, then you shouldn't have any further problems as long as you keep your house's drain lines clear.
Maybe go ask the foreman at the worksite whether they're installing a new "storm sewer" or "twinning the sewer". If so, ask if they intend to do your street too, and if they're doing that work because of sewer back ups in your neighborhood. If that's what they're doing, then what you'll have when they're finished is a huge pipe for household waste water (called the "sanitary sewer", and an even bigger pipe for rain water run off (called the "storm sewer"), and then you'll have more water handling capacity under the street your house is on than you can shake a stick at.
One more question, what is the best solution to keep roots under control in lines? I hear copper sulfate is good but a 2lb container is $14. I also see some many people say salt down the drain. I bought a 80lb bag for about $10.
I really don't know if you can put anything down your drain piping to kill tree roots. My advice is the best way to get rid of those roots is to cut them off with a cutter head at the end of a plumber's snake.
Calling the rooter can really add up especially if we have to do it so often.
Don't call the Rooter. Look for plumbing companies that can't afford to advertise on the radio and run a full page ad in the yellow pages. Not only will you pay much less for the job, but the person doing the work will be the president of the company and will have more experience cleaning drains than a couple of Rooters put together.
Instead of phoning the Rooter, phone the smaller companies where you'll get someone much more experienced who will be able to give you more knowledgable solutions to the problem.
But, I highly recommend you use a flashlight to monitor your floor drain water level when the clothes washer spins, and I think you should have a video inspection of both the main drain and the floor drain pipe done.