There’s no way around it.
Once a drain or a toilet is clogged – for whatever reason – then you have to act now.
Unless you’re exceptionally lucky and the blockage somehow clears itself any waiting around you do will only help the problem become worse. At High Country Roto-Rooter Breckenridge, Colorado we’ve attended thousands of clogged pipes in our three decades of service and we can say this with certainty: 99 times out of 100 you’re better off reacting quickly and getting the problem looked at that day.
In the case of tree roots or collapsed piping putting things off can be disastrous – they only get worse without quick treatment. Here’s everything you need to know about drain clearance and unblocking.
What Are the Main Signs of a Clogged Drain?
- Water draining from sinks or bathtubs very slowly
- Water backing up into your toilet
- A drain that overflows under normal use
- A drain that gurgles or makes other such noises under normal use
- One utility – the toilet, say – making a noise when another utility – the washer, say – starts or stops
- The presence of unpleasant smells
- Saturated soil or water pooling outside
What Causes Blocked or Clogged Drains?
There’s two types of blockage:
those you can do something to prevent
and those you can’t
Those you can do something to prevent
Many blockages are caused by the materials you put into your wastewater system in the first place. Remember that there are several sources of wastewater in your building – including, but not limited to: showers, sinks, toilets, baths, dishwashers and washing machines.
So with regards to all these potential sources of trouble don’t do these things:
- don’t pour cooking fat or grease into your sink. Store it in a cardboard milk carton, coffee can or similar then throw it out with the trash
- don’t let human hair go down the plug-hole. Use a plug-hole guard and dispose of hair in the trash
- don’t throw coffee grounds onto your garden or throw in the trash
- do take a photo of your drain to your local plumbing supplier and ask them for the right kind of grate to use to prevent foliage from getting into the piping
Those you can do little or nothing to prevent
- neighbour bunging up your inter-connected sewer system with inappropriate waste
- tree or plants roots invading pipes through cracks then blocking the water flow
- ground shifting that ruptures pipes
- wear and tear on pipes due to usage and age
We’ve been unclogging toilets, clearing pipes and fixing sewers in the Summit, Eagle, Clear Creek, Park and Lake Counties for over three decades. In that time we’ve experienced all manner of reasons for clogged drains and pipes – here are the main causes:
Tree roots invading water and sewer pipes is pretty much the number one cause of clogged drains. Their first point of entry is through a crack in the pipe.
Flushable wipes cost water authorities millions of dollars a year to deal with at water treatment plants. Householders face messy and sometimes expensive repair work when wipes clog up a pipe. They’re called ‘flushable’ because they will fit into a pipe. But that doesn’t stop them from joining forces with other materials and blocking the pipe.
Feminine hygiene product and baby diapers are not biodegradable and are expert at blocking up water systems. Again, the labeling might say ‘flushable’ but that doesn’t mean they’re ‘uncloggable’.
Condoms and dental floss are not meant to go into the wastewater system and can combine with other clogging materials to create a serious problem later.
Cooking oil and other fats and greases will cause problems throughout your plumbing system and can – and do – stick and bind nicely with other materials to create a serious blockage. No foodstuffs should enter your wastewater system. The consequences can be messy and expensive.
Food is flushed down the toilet by some people but it can be solid, stringy, greasy – and it will combine with other materials in the system to create a water blockage.
Pipe damage caused by age, wear and tear or the shifting of supporting ground can impede wastewater flow causing back-up and the usual unpleasant consequences.
Leaves, twigs, soil, plants and so on are great pipe blockers – you have to be diligent in keeping your yard swept and your drains properly guarded to reduce this cause of drain clogging
This list isn’t exhaustive but High Country Roto-Rooter Breckenridge has cleared a lot of drains, pipes and sewer lines over the last three decades – and almost all these blockages are caused by tree root incursions, pipe damage or else a combination of the materials mentioned above.
How Does HCRR Unblock Drains?
Once we’ve confirmed there’s a real problem with drainage
… we will first determine whether the blockage is in the mainline sewer or within the network of pipes within your home or building….
Problems in the sewer will often affect the whole building so we would diagnose the exact cause by carrying out an inspection.
High Country Roto-Rooter Breckenridge, Colorado doesn’t dig up the ground to try to find which part of the pipe is blocked – that’s too messy, too inconvenient for our customers and way too expensive. Instead, our CCTV Video Sewer and Pipe Inspection service will send cameras into the offending pipe to search out, locate and identify the exact cause of the blockage.
Then, depending on what’s causing it, we will know how to go about fixing it.
Tree roots will need cutting out – we’ll use our three decades of Roto-Rooter skills to get that done for you.
Waste build-ups – especially fat, grease, sanitary products and so on – all of which accumulate in pipes to clog up the system – will need blasting out with our hydro-jetting service.
Repairing Drains Using Cured In Place Pipe (CIPP) Technology
If the pipe itself has broken or cracked then we can often use Cured In Place Pipe (CIPP) methods to affect a perfect repair – without digging up your home, building or grounds.
High Country Roto-Rooter’s CIPP repair service works like this: we first send a long flexible PVC liner into the damaged pipe. The liner is pre-saturated with resin epoxy.
A bladder is then inserted inside and along the length of this liner before being inflated under high pressure. This pushes the PVC liner hard against the interior of the old pipe. The resin epoxy cures, the liner becomes solid – and you’re left with a beautiful new smooth, seamless ‘pipe within a pipe’.
This new pipe restores the structural integrity of the old pipe and seals off breaks, cracks and leaks.
Conclusion
And we’ve said this before too but it bears repeating: if you’re buying a new property make a CCTV drains inspection part of your due diligence. Find blockages as they start – not when they’ve ruined your home or offices.
We service customers all over the Breckenridge, Frisco, Silverthorne, Dillon, Eagle, Vail, Avon, Eagle-Vail, Edwards, Gypsum and surrounding areas and if you’re responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of a home or property then we strongly recommend an annual inspection. Catch any new problems while they’re relatively minor. Which means you solve a small problem now rather than a disaster later…