Drain Cleaning in Freedom, CA

What I actually do when you call about a drain

I ask a few questions first, because they change what I bring. One slow fixture is a different job from every drain in the house backing up at once — the second one usually means the main line, not the trap.

Then I clear it. For sink, tub, shower and laundry lines that is a cable machine sized to the pipe. For a main line with grease or scale built up on the walls, a jetter does a better job, because a cable punches a hole through a blockage while water actually scours the pipe.

When it is done I run water long enough to be sure it is really draining, not just draining better than it was. And I tell you what I found — which matters more than it sounds, because it is the difference between a clog and a failing pipe.

Drains I clear

• Kitchen sinks and disposals — grease, food, and the soft blockage that builds where the line turns
• Tubs, showers and bathroom sinks — hair and soap
• Toilets that plunge but do not stay clear
• Laundry standpipes that overflow on the spin cycle
• Main sewer lines, through an outside cleanout where there is one
• Floor and area drains in garages and older additions

When a clog is not really a clog

This is worth saying plainly, because it is the thing that costs people money around here.

A lot of homes in Freedom and Watsonville were built before the mid-1970s, and a good number still have the original vitrified clay sewer lateral running out to the street. Clay comes in short sections with joints every few feet. Roots find those joints — and in the Pajaro Valley, with the soil we have and the mature trees in these older neighborhoods, they find them reliably.

What that looks like from inside the house is a main line that backs up, gets cleared, works fine for four or five months, and backs up again. Each time, the cabling worked. The pipe is still the problem.

The same goes for a line that has settled into a low spot and holds water. It will catch everything that goes past it, forever.

If that pattern sounds like your house, a sewer camera inspection is worth more than another cabling. It costs less than repeat visits and it tells you whether you are looking at a spot repair or a full sewer line replacement before you commit to anything.

A few things that help

• Run cold water while the disposal is going, and give it a few seconds after the grinding stops.
• Grease goes in the trash once it cools, not down the sink. It is liquid when it goes in and solid twenty feet down the line.
• Hair catchers in the shower are two dollars and prevent most of what I pull out of bathroom drains.
• If you have got an outside cleanout, know where it is. It makes main line work faster and cheaper, and if you ever have a real backup at eleven at night, you will be glad you know.

I work across Freedom, Watsonville, Corralitos, Aptos and the rest of the Pajaro Valley — see everywhere I cover.