Here at Garvin’s Sewer Service, we’re always interested in helping you prevent the need for emergency sewer cleaning. Even though it’s how we make our living, we’d rather see you for preventive drain cleaning than to have to rush to your house because you’re ankle deep in blackwater. We’d rather establish a relationship with you as your go-to honest sewer cleaners than to be at our doorstep every month due to preventable problems.
But some problems just can’t be avoided no matter how careful you are. Here are a few issues that you’ll need to call a professional sewer service to deal with.
Sewer Line Breaks – Some sewer lines can sit in the ground for a hundred years and only require occasional sewer service. Other’s will break after fewer than 20 years, simply because the ground underneath them wasn’t compacted enough (it’s the same reason you get potholes in a road). So you don’t always know when a sewer line break is coming, and there might not be any warning.
When your house lateral sewer line breaks (the part that you’re responsible for), you’ve suddenly lost your connection between the water leaving your home and the public sewer system. At that point it’s pretty obvious what happens: instead of heading down the sewer pipe, anything you send down the drain is now hitting dirt, and while some of the water can be absorbed by the ground, any solids will be stuck in place. As you use a drain, either via a toilet flush or a letting it head down a sink, anything that goes down has nowhere to go, and at that point it can start coming back up. When that happens, give us a call and we can confirm the break with a sewer camera and talk through your options.
Sometimes there is warning, though. If the pipe hasn’t broken completely, it might be letting some of the sewage go through, just not so easily. So if you’re noticing slow drains all around, give us a call and we can send down the sewer scope to see if it’s simply a clog or something much worse.
Public Sewer Problems: There’s one thing more disgusting than having your own sewage back up…and that’s having someone else’s sewage back up into your home!
The public sewer line isn’t your responsibility, but it can be your problem. Public sewers can have blockages from time to time, but thankfully it’s not that often. There’s a chance it could be a root problem, but more than likely the pipes were simply so old that they broke or disintegrated, or a grease monster grew in the sewers from people pouring too much fat down their sinks.
The only thing that you as a resident can do is to not send your own grease down the drains, and preach the wonders of grease prevention to your neighborhood. Oh, and vote “yes” if there’s a tax increase for public works!
An Inconsiderate Guest: You can baby your drains and sewer lines all you want, but all it takes is a single guest who’s apparently never used a bathroom before to shave a Bigfoot and decide way to hide the evidence is to flush it down the toilet all at once. You can’t prevent this, but suddenly you’ve got a huge problem on your hands.
When unpreventable problems come your way, don’t think twice before giving us a call right here at Garvin’s Sewer Service. We’ll be there in a flush!