Your sewer line has a big, unpleasant job to do! It carries all the wastewater from all your drains away from your home and connects with your municipal wastewater system. If something goes wrong with your sewer line, it can result in some extremely disgusting outcomes. The key is to catch problems early, before something terrible happens—like sewage backing up into your bathtub!
How can you tell there’s a sewer line problem in time to get it professionally cleaned out without a disaster? Here are the key things to look for.
Slow Drains
Before you end up with a complete clog, drainage starts to slow down. A partial blockage allows some water to drain, it just takes more time than it would with a clear line. While a single slow drain may have a smaller, more localized problem, if you notice that multiple drains are slow, the clog is probably deeper in the system.
Clogged Drains
A single clogged drain might be a problem you can resolve with a sink plunger or hand-cranked drain snake. (Don’t use liquid drain cleaner! The chemicals are dangerously harsh, both to you and to your plumbing, and can cause more problems than they clear up.) If you can’t unblock the drain, or it seems to clear but clogs again quickly, you’ll need a plumber to resolve it.
Multiple clogged drains indicate that it’s not actually the drain that’s clogged—it’s the sewer line that all the drains are trying to empty into. It’s definitely time for sewer cleaning in Sterling, VA before you have a backed-up sewage situation on your hands.
Smelly Drains
There are two possible causes of foul odors emanating from your drains, and either requires prompt, professional attention. It may be that the sewer vent is blocked or stuck, allowing sewer gasses to backflow into your drains. Or it may be that there’s so much clogged sewage in your sewer line that you can smell it. Sewer gasses are a health hazard, so don’t ignore this stinky warning!
Lawn Problems
If a sewer line is leaking into the surrounding soil, it will cause disruptions to your lawn. Some of these, obviously, are unpleasant: soggy patches and bad smells. But there’s one sign that might surprise you. Because sewage is essentially manure, the area of lawn near a sewer line crack or break may have especially lush, green grass! This is not a safe fertilizer, though, so the problem needs to be fixed.
How Sewer Cleaning Is Performed
Plumbers today have tools that make resolving sewer line problems much easier than in the past. Video pipe inspection, sending tiny cameras on flexible lines through narrow plumbing, makes it easy to pinpoint the location of issues. Hydro jetting, which forces pressurized water through the sewer line, can blast away blockages with no chemicals and no disassembling your plumbing.
If you spot any of those worrisome signs, don’t wait and hope it will get better on its own! You don’t want to let a sewer line problem get worse. Reach out to a qualified plumber for the help you need.
AllTech Services, Inc. is your trusted resource for all your plumbing, drain, and sewer concerns. Contact us today!