Roots In Your Sewer Line, Save your Money with Maintenance

Roots in your sewer line can be a nightmare.  Especially if you have a plumber that is more interested in selling a repair as opposed to providing you with the best options.  In Southern California where I am located, a typical sewer line repair in dirt, not under concrete and at a depth of about 3 to 4 feet is typically about 3,000-4,000 dollars.  Depending on the pipe condition, that repair may not be necessary.  As long as the pipe is still intact, that problem spot can many times, be maintained with a regular cleaning. The important thing is a proper diagnosis, usually with a camera, to pinpoint the trouble spot and provide you with a plan to properly maintain that section of pipe.  Running a standard cable in the line, which most people opt for because it is the cheapest, is really not the best thing.  It tends to rip a hole in the roots but often leaves substantial amounts of roots in the line.  This gives the roots a head start at coming back.  And they will be back.  How often do you mow your lawn or trim your bushes in the yard.  What if you didn't trim the bushes for a year.  Now you get the idea.  Sewer roots need to be maintained. Hydro jetting is a much more effective way of removing roots.  Many times it is so effective that you can no longer see any evidence of roots in the sewer line after it has been hydro jetted. Combining this with a regular treatment of foaming root killer will usually save the property owner thousands of dollars and may allow you to skip that expensive repair indefinitely. Check out the following link.  The video will give you an idea of the power and effectiveness of hydro jetting.  Superjet Hydro Jetting
Call us if we can be of any help.
Mark   Superjet Sewer and Drain Cleaning.
Sewer Roots

I got one of those calls I just love.

Property manager calls us out today, Sunday 10 am. Mainline sewer for a house.  Not excited about working Sunday but you know what they say, "make hay while the sun shines."  So 2 plumbers have been out there before us and they couldn't get it.  Over 100 feet out from the front yard c/o and neither one of them could reach it.
Ok, so I have 600 feet of hose on the hydro jetter so I'm confident I'm going to reach.  So when I get there, I get the rest of the story.  It seems the line backed up a month ago and another plumber was able to get it open then but the manager didn't know how far out he was when he opened the line.  But the mere fact that it was just cabled a month ago tells me it's roots and there back.  Prior plumber probably did a mediocre job last time so it didn't take long for it to back up again.  I know the problem is over 100 feet out.  So I jet with the big hose and big trailer mounted jetter and I could feel it chew through a few spots but then I hit the "spot".  I parked on it with the standard nozzle for a very long time, easlily 5 to 7 minutes without any results or movement at all, line burped a bit but it would not clear.  Ran it at almost full pressure just under 4,000 psi.
Made the change to the warthog spinner nozzle, the ws for 1/2" hose.  quickly ran back out to the stop point and parked on it just a couple inches back and let the nozzle do it's thing.  About a minute goes by and I can see slight progress as the hose inches slowly in. 5 minutes later and we had chewed through about 6 feet of blockage and after that we immediately dropped into the city main in the street.  You could clearly hear the line drain out and we could hear the echo of the nozzle as it went out into the city connection.  We pulled back and jetted that spot about 4 times slowly going back through and into the city connection.  Bad news was that the problem spot is in the street.  He didn't want to run a camera just yet, trying to get a home warranty company to ok that first., but I told him, the blockage is in the street. not a good thing you need to diagnose it properly.
Just the same he was really happy.  We cleared it when the other guys could not.  We love that.
Mind you just the same it was definitely a difficult blockage.  Even with our big machine, it was slow going.  But it's nice to make the customer happy.  He said, no messing around any more, give me your card and I'll call you first.  Nice.
Mark Superjet Sewer and Drain Cleaning
Make sure to check out our 2 new youtube ads.  I promise it's entertaining.
The Russian Grease Conspiracy
Attack of the Sewer Roots

Sewer roots, Hydro Jet Maintenance or CIPP Repair?

 I Just recently had a long conversation, actually  multiple conversations with a prospective customer and he was torn between lining his sewer pipe to prevent root intrusion or whether he should possibly just maintain it by hydro jetting it maybe once a year or so.   There's no set answer. What you have to look for at first is the condition of the pipe to determine if it's a candidate for regular maintenance. If you have multiple cracks within a given section of the pipe it's probably going to be less likely a candidate for maintenance.  Multiple cracks allow individual pieces of the pipe to move and you don't want that.  Note that I chose my words carefully,  I said less likely.  Just because it has multiple cracks doesn't mean that it can't be maintained, each situation needs to be looked at individually with a high quality camera inspection. Now for example if you have root intrusion at a joint and that joint is basically intact, then you can consider it a better candidate for maintaining it with hydro jetting as opposed to spending much more money to line it with a CIPP liner system. You just need to do the math and decide which is a better alternative for you. In this instance the customer was looking at an estimate in the neighborhood of $6000  to line 30 feet of sewer pipe. His root intrusion appeared to be solely at the joints  with the rest of the pipe looking just fine. You could jet that pipe 15 times before you'd spend $6000. It really comes down to an honest evaluation as opposed to a scare tactic from someone who's looking to sell a liner. The following video shows a segment of pipe that definitely needed to be lined.
https://youtu.be/9eFHsAPUprE
If you're in Southern California, call us for an honest evaluation. We're Superjet sewer and drain cleaning were the ones that know what we're doing.

Landscape Drains and Area Drains Benefit from Hydro Jetting

The primary thing to keep in my when you are trying to clear problem area drains or landscape drains is that the culprit is usually a combination of three things in varying amounts.

The first is usually dirt.  The drains usually occupy a low spot, if they were installed properly, and if the area around the drain is not protected or stabilized somehow by regulating the size of the material around the drain, you always end up with that material going into the drain, multiply that by10 - 15 years or more and you get a serious accumulation.

The second item is usually roots.  Area or landscape drains are notorious for being installed at a lower  quality standard.  The majority of pipe joints we encounter with regard to landscape drains are not glued.  The fact that they are simply press fitted together allows the joints to leak as they carry water to the outflow.  That leak over time brings roots into the line through the joint, they grow and expand and many times the roots will deform the pipe.  If  the pipe has substantial dirt in it as well, now you have a mass of dirt with roots combined.  This combination over years and years of accumulation, makes it pretty close to impossible to remove with a typical plumbers cable machine. The machine typically buries the cable into the dirt and many times it becomes stuck requiring a dig to get the cable out.  If that happens to be under concrete, it's going to be expensive.

"You can not cable dirt."  It just doesn't work.  

Imagine using an electric drill, put any bit on it that you please,  and start drilling into a 5 gallon bucket full of dirt.  What do you think is going to happen?  Nothing. Your going to move a little bit of dirt around but your certainly not going to remove the problem dirt.
Now, hit that same bucket of dirt with a firehose and what do you think is going to happen. Yes your right, no more dirt.  The volume and pressure of the water will put the dirt into suspension in the water and flow it out of the bucket.  Combine that with a rotating nozzle to cut roots and you begin to see the advantage hydro jetting has over running a cable.

The last item I would call "debris" and it usually ends up being chunks of something. I attached a couple of photographs to give you a "for instance."

The first is a very large amount of medium pebble rock that went into a customers landscape drains from around a koi pond.  Some of it is visible here but we probably pulled out 15 to 20 lbs of pebble rock that had mixed in with dirt in a low spot in the line run.  That could never have been removed with a cable machine.

Pebble rock removed from Landscape Drain with Hydro Jetting.

Grout material left in line by tile contractor after installing new backyard hardscape.

Note the large and small chunks of rocklike material removed with Hydro Jetting.

Close up of the hardened grout, note the half pipe shape clearly visible in the left rear piece.

With this type of material, the hydro jetting with high pressure water actually gets between the pipe wall and the grout and breaks it free to move.  The water flows it out of the pipe. You could never remove this material with a cable machine.

Now let's be honest, there is no magic cure.  Landscape drains are a very difficult type of problem because there are so many variables and landscape lines are generally not installed to code.  For that same exact reason, many vendors will not service area drains. 

Regardless of how effective our hydro jetting machine is, we have seen lines that could not be cleared for a number of reasons.  Sometimes the pipes are no longer round from being crushed by a careless installer or deformed by root intrusion, or the layout and the use of  T fittings instead of a swept turn will prevent you from getting through.  Sometimes the roots are so heavy from so many years of neglect that it just isn't feasible to hydro jet and your better off replacing the line if the above ground hardscape allows it.

With all things being equal, Hydro jetting is by far a much more effective process at removing a variety of different types of debris.

Large root mass quickly chewed up by the warthog nozzle.  Note the size of the roots as compared to the 1/2 inch I/D of the green hose.

Superjet Sewer and Drain Cleaning.

www.Superjetdrains.com

Superjet Hydro jetting demonstration video

 

El Nino is coming, don't fail to prepare.

"I'm still shopping around." Searching for the cheapest price on hydro-jetting.

I can't tell you how many times as a vendor I hear, "I'm still shopping around, I'll call you back."  It's frustrating as a quality vendor because I know that in the end their sole consideration is price.  They are assuming that everything else is equal.  They assume that Hydro jetting is the same from one vendor to the next and nothing could be further from the truth.  I try and educate people as to the differences to look for but some people don't want to hear it, they just want the lowest price.

Ok, so when people tell me "this guy will hydro-jet  for $250 or $200"  I tell them, "use him, or better yet, go to craigslist and put a want ad for hydro-jetting and put a price of $150 or $100."  Without a doubt you will find someone but it becomes obvious to them at that point that maybe going the cheapest rout isn't the best idea.

Let me give you a "for instance".  When I was a young man I had a plumbing water leak in my newly purchased home.  I had a home warranty with one of the national home warranty vendors so I let them take care of it instead of doing the work myself.  Well if your not aware of how the home warranty business works, I'll tell you.  They send out a contractor that they have struck a deal with and they pay that contractor a very small per visit fee, maybe only $50 dollars or so and the contractor picks up a small check from the homeowner as a co-pay as it were. So the combination of the two payments still adds up to a very small service call fee for the vendor supplying the work.  

Well what happens is that you end up with a lower quality of service provider that is willing to work that cheaply.

In my case,  when the "plumber" arrived, it was obvious that this man had spent more than a little time in jail.  He was covered with jail house tattoos and he was not someone I wanted around my young wife and children. I would have gladly spent an extra $100 just to keep that man out of my house.  So you see, everything isn't equal.

The best thing to do is research. The internet is an amazing tool, use it to your advantage.  Just a little bit of time online will give you a pretty good idea of who is competent and who is not, of who can be trusted and who can not. Be wary of the one stop shop websites that say they will provide you with a great contractor.  Again, use the internet for reviews of each specific service provider by name.

We have an amazing amount of information online at our website that tells you what to ask to allow you to compare one hydro jetting vendor to the next.  www.superjetdrains.com

And by the way, we hold a DOD, ( department of defense ) background check and clearance for work on military installations.

Mark Gervase, President

Superjet Sewer and Drain Cleaning

Just another day of drain cleaning and a testimonial

We were recently called by a homeowner that had root intrusion and pipe issues. He was having regular backups and had called a plumber out. That plumber cabled the line and then ran a camera. He found multiple points of root intrusion into the line and immediately went into a hard sell on a new liner for the pipe. It's advantageous to install a liner usually but not always necessary. Sometimes it's more economical to clean the line on a regular basis and leave it at that.
Well, clearly the homeowner picked up on the hard sell and wasn't comfortable or interested. The plumber was more interested in selling a liner than in fixing the mans problem. Well, when it became clear that he wasn't going to sell a liner to the homeowner, the plumber was gone. The homeowner had found us online and seen our video demonstration showing how we could completely clear a line of roots.
When we arrived we immediately ran a camera to diagnose the situation. I was really surprised that the prior plumber hadn't taken the time to mark a few things out when he ran his own camera. He charged for a camera yet did very little to give the homeowner the information that the camera provided. Nothing had been marked or located. We had to start from scratch. We marked all the pipe runs, direction changes and root intrusion spots. We used the sewer camera to precisely place the cutting sewer nozzle right on top of the root masses and completely removed the roots. The prior plumber had in essence just punched a hole through the root masses with his cable machine and left a great deal of roots still in the line.
The way it stands, the homeowner can hydro jet once a year for the next 14 years before he would have spent the amount equal to a liner installation. Every situation is a little different. But you don't always have to spend the big bucks.

The following is the homeowners email to us regarding our service:

Name: Frank Robinson
Email: umpxxxxxxxxx
Phone: 949-495-xxxx
Services Required: Hydrojetting
Comments: I had my home sewer lines Hydro Jetted by this Company on Apr 20,2010 & have nothing but praise for the Company,the service provided & in particular Mark who did the work.The professioal way that the work was conducted & the willingness to educate me @ each step was out standing.I would highly recommend these people for any work you may have & plan on having them do any future work that I might require,Kuddos to Mark & thank you.