How To Clear A Sewer Line
Multiple clogged sinks and sewage backing up into your bathtub point to a clog in your main sewer line. This alarming situation requires you to know how to clear a sewer line. All the drain lines in your home connect with the main sewer line. This large pipe connects your house with the municipal sewer system or a septic tank. When a clog forms in the main sewer line, your home ceases to be in a sanitary condition. Immediate action is needed to restore the proper drainage of sewage from the premises.
Tools Needed
- Pipe wrench
- Commercial-grade auger, also known as plumbing snake
- Garden hose
- Thick work gloves
- Face mask, optional
Step by Step Directions:
- How to clear a sewer line starts with locating the sewer cleanout access point for your plumbing system. It will be a large pipe with a cap that has a square knob or a big notch. Builders locate them in basements, crawl spaces, garages, or outside.
- Examine your plumbing to see where the main drain lines converge and exit the home. The cleanout should be in the vicinity.
- If you can’t find the cleanout inside, look outside near the foundation.
- Once you’ve found the cleanout, put on your gloves and get the pipe wrench. You may want to put on a face mask because the odor may be strongly unpleasant.
- Unscrew the cap and set it aside.
- Connect your hose to a water source and have it ready nearby.
- Read the directions for your auger and start feeding the snake line through the open cleanout hole.
- Continue sending the snake into the pipe.
- Once you feel resistance, you have reached the clog.
- Keep forcing the snake onward so that it can break the clog.
- When resistance stops, still keep going. There could be more clogs and debris.
- Work with the auger until you think that the clog is resolved.
- Insert the hose into the top of the cleanout and run water.
- The water should flow away and not back up out of the pipe.
- If the water starts to back up, start working with the auger again.
- When water is draining away properly, retract the auger slowly.
- Keep the hose running in the pipe to rinse the auger line as it comes back.
- Replace the cap on the cleanout and tighten it with the pipe wrench.
Professional Drain Cleaning Services
Although the concept behind how to clear a sewer line is simple, difficult problems can emerge. Some homes have their cleanout access buried outside. In that case, digging is necessary to reach it. Tree roots could have penetrated the pipes. This type of blockage cannot be fixed with an auger. In all honesty, you have the option of not dealing with this messy job. The drain cleaning team at Oliver has commercial-grade equipment on hand. We know how to remedy the toughest clogging problems. Contact us online today or call (888) 810-2681 for sewer line cleaning today.
