Drain Cleaning Service: Why Does My Sewer Keep Backing Up? | New Orleans, LA
Photo By Cunaplus_M.Faba at istock
Everyone has a first-time with their home sewer system, and it is never a good story regardless of who you call for help with drain cleaning service. That is because most of the problem is actually with the drain itself. Walking into the basement to find wastes and tissues flooding out from your floor drain is not anyone’s picture of a good time. Not only does this indicate that you need drain cleaning in New Orleans, LA right away, but it probably means that you are going to need flood damage services as well.
The entire experience is usually enough to strike fear into any homeowner. However, for some people, the experience is not a one-and-done type of deal. While the original clean may help for a few months, some homeowners find that their floor drain is backing up or showing signs of a backup just a few months after the last cleaning. You shouldn’t have to call a drain cleaning service every three months. If you are, this is a sign that you need to take a harder look at why your drains are backing up.
When you start to need drain cleaning on a regular basis (not counting maintenance visits), it is a sign that something is wrong with your pipes. It is also an indication that it is time to start thinking about investigative drain cleaning services. This means essentially that you need to dig deeper into why your sewer is backing up instead of just dealing with clean-up duty over and over again. Unless you enjoy cleaning up feces, it’s time to get some real help.
How Can a Drain Cleaning Service Figure Out the Problem?
Plumbers spend a lot of time investigating drains which give us a bit of an edge over others. We know what can go wrong with drain systems because we have seen dozens of issues and solved them. However, we also have tools that help us quickly diagnose and create a plan to control future drain issues. Any drain cleaning service that offers comprehensive treatment should be able to offer you a diagnostic visit and a maintenance plan that is customized to fit the needs of your home.
What Is a Diagnostic Visit?
As the name implies, the point of a diagnostic visit is to figure out what is wrong with your sewer system to stop future back-ups. The most common way for a service to figure that out is with a small camera system that can be inserted into the pipeline. Often referred to as a scope for your pipes, the small camera is placed on the end of a flexible metal rod that can be slowly bent and pressed down a line so that the plumber can see everything as it moves along.
This allows the drain cleaning service to see if there is a clog formed by debris that may be the result of improper sink usage, or if there are tree roots breaking into your sewer line that are causing blockages to reoccur. It may even reveal a broken pipeline that is causing an even larger issue than you thought. Regardless of the issue, the first step in solving it is actually figuring out what the problem is. This is why you need a reliable drain cleaning expert to help you sort through it so that you don’t spend the next year cleaning up sewage from time to time in your basement.
What Causes Sewer Backups?
There are a number of things that can cause sewer backups. Roots are one of the biggest causes of repetitive sewer backups. If you have a tree in your front yard there is a good chance that roots are a problem for your New Orleans, LA home. Tree roots naturally grow towards nutrients and moisture and unfortunately, your sewer line offers both to them. Tree roots can start out feather-thin which allows them to enter the line through small cracks and/or valves.
Unfortunately, the roots continue to grow and can actually break through the pipes. At this point, you may have a drain cleaning service emergency, but if you don’t you will definitely have a partial obstruction. While water can continue to flow through it, eventually the debris like toilet tissue will start to build up around the roots until you have a full obstruction and need to call a drain cleaner to come to sort it out again. Keep in mind that you can have problems with other roots as well, it doesn’t have to be a tree. Shrubs can have very extensive web systems that cause similar damage.
Another common cause of repeated clogs is a broken sewer line. Usually, there are other signs, but sometimes there are not outside of a floor drain that keeps backing up. When a sewer line breaks the water does not evenly flow out of your home sewer into the municipal New Orleans, LA sewer and instead is deterred by the break of cracks. Sometimes this can be indicated by wet spots in your yard, but given how much rain the LA region can experience at times, this is not a reliable indicator.
Finally, sometimes poor drain habits are the reason why you continue to experience drain issues. If the drain cleaning service finds flushable wipes, floss, eggshells, toys, etc in your drains they will know that things are going down the drain that shouldn’t be. If it isn’t water, TP, or human wastes then it shouldn’t go down your drain. In this case, if you change your drain habits you won’t have to worry about calling a drain cleaning service on a regular basis.
Ready to find out what the problem with your drains is? Then call bluefrog Plumbing + Drain of New Orleans today so we can schedule a visit.
Priority Service