When the ground saturates, every crack and root intrusion in a sewer line becomes an entry point. A sewer backup during heavy rain almost always means your line already had a problem. The rain just found it. Roots in a joint, a cracked clay lateral, a bellied section holding water, or a pipe lined with […]
The basin is clean. The biofilm coating the drain below it is not. When your kitchen sink smells and the basin is spotless, the odor isn’t coming from the sink. It’s coming from the drain. Almost always it’s one of five things: a grease film coating the pipe wall, food sludge and biofilm in the […]
Routine cleaning keeps grease and scale from becoming an emergency call. How often should drains be cleaned depends entirely on which drain you mean. Your kitchen and bathroom fixture drains need light attention every one to three months. Your main sewer lateral, the single buried pipe carrying everything out to the street, is the one […]
Gurgling means air is moving through water where it should not. Your drain system is telling you something. Toilet gurgling is the sound of air being dragged or pushed through the standing water in your toilet’s trap. That water is supposed to sit still. When it bubbles, air is taking a path it shouldn’t. There […]
A slow draining shower rarely fixes itself. The clog only builds from here. A slow draining shower is almost always a mat of hair bound together with soap scum, sitting in the trap or the first few feet of pipe past it. That’s the common case, and you can often clear it yourself in about […]
Hair and grease buildup is the most common reason a household drain keeps clogging. If your drain keeps clogging a week or two after you cleared it, the clog was never really gone. A plunger or a store snake usually punches a hole through the blockage and restores flow for a while, but it leaves […]
A sewer camera inspection shows the real condition of the line before you buy. For most older Sonoma County homes, yes, a sewer camera inspection is worth getting before you close. It’s the one check a standard home inspection leaves out, and it’s the difference between knowing what shape the sewer lateral is in and […]
A cracked or offset sewer pipe is one of the sewer line repair signs you cannot ignore. The clearest sewer line repair signs are several drains backing up at once, a sewage smell that won’t quit, gurgling toilets, and soggy or strangely green patches in the yard. One slow sink is usually a simple clog. […]
Hydro jetting scours the full pipe wall, while a snake punches through the clog. Each has its place. Here’s the short answer on hydro jetting vs snaking: snaking is the right tool for a single, soft, one-time clog, while hydro jetting is what actually cleans the whole pipe when grease, scale, or roots keep bringing […]