Drains, main lines and the reason it keeps coming back.
Clearing a drain is easy. Clearing it so it stays clear means finding out what put it there. We cable first, jet when cabling will not hold, and put a camera down when the same line blocks twice.
READ THE SYMPTOM
One slow drain is a fixture.
Two is the main line.
This is the single most useful thing a homeowner can know, and it changes what you should do next. If one sink is slow and everything else in the house is fine, the blockage is in that fixture's own trap or branch. It is a small job, often inside the first hour, and it is not urgent.
If two or more fixtures are slow, or if flushing a toilet makes the tub gurgle, or if the washing machine draining brings water up into the shower, the blockage is downstream of where those lines join. That is the main line, and it is a different problem with a different urgency.
If water is coming back up into a tub or a floor drain, stop using every fixture in the house right now. Including the dishwasher and the washing machine. Everything you run has to go somewhere, and right now the lowest opening in your house is the place it has chosen. Then call (209) 278-4781.
WHAT BLOCKS WHAT
Every drain in the house fails differently.
The line tells you what went into it. Knowing which one you are dealing with is most of the diagnosis, and it decides whether cabling will hold or whether it needs jetting.
Kitchen sink
Grease, every time. It goes down warm and liquid and it cools on the inside of the pipe like fat setting in a pan. Over years it glazes the pipe down to a narrow channel. Cabling punches a hole through it, jetting takes the wall back to bare pipe.
Bathroom sink
Hair and soap, bound together into something with the texture of felt, usually sitting right in the P trap or in the pop up assembly just below the plug. Frequently the fastest job we do all week.
Tub and shower
The same hair and soap, further down the branch and harder to reach because the trap is under the floor. Chemical drain cleaner rarely gets through it and does damage the pipe on the way past.
Toilet
Almost always something that should not have gone in. Wipes that say flushable are not, they do not break down, and they are the single most common cause of a toilet blockage we see. Cotton buds, dental floss and paper towel are the runners up.
Laundry
Lint, plus detergent scum. A washer dumps a lot of water very fast, so a partially blocked laundry line often shows itself as an overflow at the standpipe rather than as slow draining.
Main line
Roots, in an older property, or a collapsed or bellied section in a newer one. Roots find hairline cracks and old clay joints because that is where the water is. Once they are in, cutting them buys you a year or two at a time.
THREE TOOLS, THREE JOBS
Cable, jet, or camera.
These are not three price tiers dressed up as options. They do genuinely different things, and using the wrong one is how a drain gets cleared three times in a year.
Cabling
A rotating steel cable with a cutting head. It bores through the blockage and, with the right head, cuts roots back to the pipe wall. Fast, effective, and the right first move for most clogs. What it does not do is clean the pipe. It makes a hole through what is in there.
Best for: hair, roots, most single fixture clogs, anything urgent.
Hydro jetting
High pressure water through a nozzle that pulls itself up the line, scouring the pipe back to its original diameter. This is the one that actually cleans. It is the correct answer for a grease glazed kitchen line, and it lasts years rather than months.
Best for: grease, scale, repeat blockages, lines that have never been cleaned.
Camera inspection
A camera on a push rod, down the line, so you can see what is there rather than paying somebody to guess. If a line has blocked twice, this is the visit that stops you paying for a third. You get to watch the screen while it happens.
Best for: repeat blockages, buying a house, before any excavation.
What we will not do is jet a line we have not seen when there is any suspicion it is cracked or collapsed. High pressure water in a broken pipe makes the break worse. If Ron thinks that is a risk, the camera goes down first and you get told what is actually down there.
A WORD ABOUT DRAIN CLEANER
Put the bottle down.
Caustic drain cleaner works by generating heat and dissolving organic matter. On a fully blocked line it mostly sits in the standing water above the clog, does very little to it, and turns your drain into a column of hot caustic liquid.
That matters for three reasons. It damages older pipe, particularly the ABS and the cast iron in this housing stock. It can distort a plastic trap enough to start it leaking. And when somebody does eventually open that trap up, it goes over their hands.
If you have already used some, that is fine, just tell us before we start. Nobody is going to tell you off, we would simply rather know what is in the pipe before we open it.
- A cup of very hot water and dish soap for a slow kitchen sink, weekly, genuinely helps
- Pull the pop up out of a slow bathroom sink and clean it. That is the clog most of the time
- A strainer in the shower costs a few dollars and prevents most of what we cable out
- Grease goes in the bin, not the sink, even hot and even chased with hot water
ROOTS, SPECIFICALLY
Old streets, big trees, clay pipe.
The mature streets around central Tracy have exactly the combination that causes root intrusion. Older sewer laterals, jointed clay or early cast iron, and large established trees whose roots are looking for the wettest thing within reach.
A root does not break into a sound pipe. It finds a joint that has moved or a hairline crack, sends in a hair thin tendril, and then thickens up inside where there is water and nothing to stop it. By the time it blocks the line it can be a solid mass the diameter of the pipe.
Cutting them out works and it is the right first step. What it does not do is close the crack they came in through, so they come back, usually on a one to three year cycle. If you want that to stop permanently, the answer is repair or lining that section, and the camera tells you exactly which section rather than the whole run.
Book a drain visitDrain and sewer questions
Backing up right now?
Stop running water anywhere in the house and call (209) 278-4781. If it is one slow drain, book it in and pay the ordinary rate.