Comments on: Plumbing 101|Residential Drain Plumbing

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:28:40 +0000

Hi Catrina. What you are describing is a very common complaint. In fact, I just recently wrote an article specifically addressing sewer main back-ups. You can find the article here: http://plumbinginfo.org/sewer-main-replacement/. In the mean time, let me put it this way – what happens when you prune a bush or a tree? It actually grows back faster, and the base gets thicker. Every time you run a cable down your line, you are pruning the roots. They grow back thicker and faster. During that process, they also create a bigger “hole” in the sewer line for even more roots to get in. Every single sewer line that suffers from root intrusion will continue to have problems at a rate that increases exponentially in both frequency and severity, until a repair is made to the problem area. In other words; what you are experiencing is 100% normal for a root problem.

In response to your other concerns: if the sewer drains after running your cable, you are hitting the problem area. Not to say that there aren’t more down the line, but if there are, they are not contributing to the problem at hand. Also, roots will not always be on the end of the blade upon clearing a root blockage. If you consider that 4″ pipe holds a gallon of water for every two feet, and the average blockage is approximately 50′ from the closest access, there is about 25 gallons of water (on average) sitting behind the blockage, that is suddenly released upon the main clearing. That is 175 lbs of water trying to wash the roots off the blade. Most of the time, the roots are just washed away once the line has been cleared.

So, a lot of info here, but the point is that you should get a camera survey done. That way there is no more guessing and wondering. Good luck!

By: Catrina

Catrina — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 05:12:58 +0000

We live in Florida. In a home that is 44 years old. Over the years we started clearing our main line as several of the plumbers would come and tear the shrubbery and just be over all rough with indoor lines. So now we rent a 100ft snake from our neighborhood home Depot and do it ourselves. Lately it has been happening more frequent that we need to clear the drain and while we have a easy outside clean out we are concerned. We have a lot of trees on our property but he said only once did he get roots on the the end of the root cutting blade. We use a power snake and are slow and careful but we are wondering if we are missing something or would it be a problem at the street?

Thank you! Hope you can shed any light on this situation.

By: Chicago Plumbing

Chicago Plumbing — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:49:39 +0000

I would strongly recommend that you clean out your shower drains at least quarterly. This will eliminate the slow draining problem, and hopefully, prevent the larger pieces of hair and debris from getting into the drain at all. This is usually a very simple process that any homeowner can do. If you have a sewer main back-up, I would highly encourage you to get a plumber involved as it can be very nasty work!

By: Robert Oda

Robert Oda — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:24:19 +0000

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By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:02:01 +0000

You’re welcome. Glad I could help.

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