Plumbing issues, such as clogged sewer lines, do not resolve themselves. If your house’s sewer line has a problem, you must fix it as soon as possible to prevent the slow flow from totally stopping all drainage from your property. A completely blocked sewage line might cause wastewater to overflow into your house, posing a health risk and causing a cleaning headache. Learn how to avoid this problem, how to spot it when it arises, and what to do if it does.
Table of Contents
- What Is A Clogged Sewer?
- Warning Signs of A Clogged Sewer
- Indications of an Emergency
- What Are The Causes?
- Uncontrollable Factors
- Controllable Factors
- What to Do With A Clogged Sewer
- How The Brisbane Plumbers Can Help
- Ways to Prevent A Clogged Sewer
- Fix Drainage Problems Where Possible
- Look Out For Tree Roots
The specific solutions will vary depending on whether your house or company is connected to a municipal sewage system or has a septic tank. Both methods treat wastewater, although they do it in distinct ways. A blockage in either may contaminate your house significantly by reversing the flow of germ-laden sewage, causing toilets to overflow and sinks to back up.
What is A Clogged Sewer?
There are incoming water lines and egress sewer lines in your home. The wastewater lines must transport used water from your washing machine, tub, shower, toilets, and sinks away from your property. Water will back up into your home if the waste pipe becomes clogged or burst. Contamination, mould development, and water damage are some of the consequences of water entering your property.
Warning Signs of a Clogged Sewer
You may discover minor indicators of a problem with your sewer system. While it may be tempting to dismiss these early warning indications of a backup, you should not. The best option is to treat the problem as soon as possible before sewage overflows into your bathroom.
Slow drains throughout the house are an important indicator that you have a construction issue in your sewage system. If only one pipe is faulty, you may usually fix it yourself with a hair remover or a plunger. When an issue arises in numerous drains at the same time, you have a sewage line problem. When you flush the toilet or use the washing machine, waste might back up into another pipe, indicating a clogged sewer drain. When garbage accumulates and overflows drains in your house, it is not a little issue. You have a more serious problem.
Indications of an Emergency
Identifying an emergency clogged sewer or blockage will help you determine if you have a problem that can wait for a plumbing business to open or whether you require emergency repairs. If you don’t know how to remedy a clogged sewer and don’t have a plumber fix your plumbing while the backup is minimal, the condition may worsen.
During an emergency backup, waste will pour into your home through clogged drains. In rare situations, your toilet may back up, spilling germ-laden liquid over your bathroom floor. Take this problem seriously. Human faeces can cause a biohazard, therefore avoid the area until it has been fully cleaned and sanitised. You should also prohibit everyone in your home from using the plumbing until the drainage system has been fixed. That is why having an emergency plumber’s phone number handy is important to recover your house.
What Are The Causes?
Clogged sewer line backups are increasing at a rate of 3% per year due to the age of the nation’s plumbing system and the growing number of dwellings. A sewage blockage can be caused by a variety of factors, many of which are beyond your control. If you want to know how to prevent a waste line backup, you must first understand the factors you can and cannot manage.
Uncontrollable Factors
If your clogged sewer drains back up, it may not be your fault or responsibility to correct it. The city sanitary sewer occasionally clogs or drains slowly, causing water to back up into your property. Several factors might cause city lines to fail. If the cleanout near your property is full of water, it indicates a drainage problem from your home to the municipal sewer lines. An empty cleanout indicates that the drain issue is closer to your home.
- Flooding: When flood waters overrun the local sanitary sewage system, the flow rate can be reduced if the system joins with stormwater drainage. Slower drainage has the potential to cause wastewater to back up into your house.
- Clogs: Clogged sewer lines can happen to the city infrastructure much like your house lines, albeit this happens less frequently because municipal drainage pipes are wider. If you suspect a clog, notify the situation to city water department.
- Soil settlement: Heavy rains can wash away the soil that supports the drainage pipes used by the city or your property. The drain lines may collapse if the supporting soil is lost. The hole in the pipe’s construction prevents flows from reaching the sanitary sewage line, resulting in a backup of flow into your property.
While you have no control over these causes, you will not be notified if a clogged sewer occurs due to one of them. The good news is that if the city’s sewer is to blame, you won’t have to pay to have your plumbing fixed unless further damage to your house plumbing happened.
Controllable Factors
Some sources of backup include plumbing issues or the surrounding environment. You have greater control over preventing backups from these sources, but if one of these factors does result in a backup, you will need to contact a professional plumber to resolve the problem.
- Tree roots: Tree roots have the potential to grow into older sewage systems. Root damage may be avoided by constructing stronger drain lines outside your property or pruning tree roots.
- Pipes, no matter how sturdy they appear, will not survive forever: If you have older clay or cast iron sewer lines flowing from your property, the age of the pipes makes them more prone to breaking due to wear over time. Because the typical sewer system is 30 years old, this situation is very likely.
- Pouring fat, oils, and grease down the drain: As they cool, fats, oils, and greases harden, forming big globs that cause physical obstructions in your drain line. Never dump cooking oil or grease down the drain. In addition, just use toilet tissue and garbage in your toilet. Paper towels, wet wipes, and sanitary napkins should not be flushed. Even though some goods are labelled as flushable, they might block the system.
- Poor design: A poorly built house drainage system may result in clogged sewer lines. Waste from French drains or sump pump output should not connect to your main sanitary drain line. The accumulated filth will produce an obstruction, which is why such connections are banned.
What to Do With A Clogged Sewer
You must act fast if you have a clogged sewer. Liquid drain cleaners should not be used for sluggish drains. These products may not clear the drain, particularly if the physical blockage is caused by a clogged drain line or tree roots. Additionally, the chemical drain treatment might cause extra harm to the pipes, or to a plumber when they arrive to fix your system.
Instead of using chemical drain cleaners, try plunging out the blockage or using a gadget designed to remove hair from pipes. If neither approach works, hire a plumber to remedy the issue. You might have a more serious problem that requires additional instruments to repair.
When there is a major backup that sends garbage into your home, you must turn off any water flowing into the drains. Also, if the wastewater comes into contact with electrical outlets, cut off the power. Turning off the power to your home is always the safest option, but if you know which breaker or fuse to turn off, you may cut power just to the flooded areas of your home.
Before approaching the polluted area, put on heavy-duty rubber gloves, boots, goggles, and a face mask. Use a shop vacuum to remove liquids and sediments from the flooded area. To accommodate the trash, use the wet-dry setting. Disinfect solid floors and walls with disinfectant. A clogged sewer in the basement is less difficult to clear than floods in carpeted living spaces.
Remove and discard any absorbent materials on the walls or floor, such as wood or carpet. Depending on how far up the walls the water got, you may have to remove the wall panelling to avoid mould development. Check with your municipality on how to dispose of the garbage gathered as well as anything else polluted by the flooded wastewater.
You cannot use your sinks, tubs, toilets, showers, or water appliances until your drain is repaired. When you utilise them, the surplus water must be channelled away from your property via the drainage system. Water will back up into your home if your plumbing is not repaired. Because everyone uses the toilet at least once a day, having a plumber come to your house for repairs is critical to restoring regular operations.
How The Brisbane Plumbers Can Help
When you call a plumber, they will visit your home and assess the issue as well as unclog your sewage line. Depending on the reason, our technicians have a variety of strategies for repairing backups. We can also assist you in repairing any plumbing issues to avoid future difficulties.
Pipe Relining
If there is a break in your sewer line, the segment must be fixed or replaced. These are last resort services, and they should not be the first thing a plumber looks for when analysing a sluggish or clogged drain. However, some telltale indicators will alert your plumber that you have a hole in your sewage line and that it needs to be fixed or replaced. These indicators include the following.
- Standing water on the grass indicates a leaky sewage line.
- Roaches, rats, and other pests cluster near the wetness produced by a leaky sewer pipe. If you’ve realised that you require pest treatment more frequently, look around your yard for indicators of a sewage line burst.
- Slow or backed-up sinks might be caused by a hole in your sewage line.
To determine the scope of the problem, our plumbers utilise cameras to determine the location and size of the hole. The results of these tests will tell our plumbers what they need to do to remedy your problem, whether it has to be replaced or repaired.
We may reline an aged or broken sewer line with a stronger, longer-lasting solution made of the durable plumbing-grade lining. These pipes can better deflect the growth of tree roots, preventing breaks inside the drain. If we need to repair your drainage pipe, we won’t have to dig a big, deep hole in your yard. We have developed a unique trenchless sewage pipe installation procedure that leaves as little damage on your landscape as possible by fixing your pipes from the inside out.
Ways to Prevent A Clogged Sewer
While you cannot prevent a badly built municipal sewer from backing up trash into your property, you may avoid backups from other sources. Because some of the causes of sewage backups are within your control, you can also completely prevent the problem.
Old Pipes
While older sewer lines may not cause immediate problems, they will almost certainly cause problems in the future. Historically, plumbers utilised either cast-iron or clay pipes. Both materials are more fragile than today’s plastic pipe. Tree roots may readily permeate certain sorts of pipe material, and they are prone to splitting due to shifting soil. If you still have ancient drain lines, consider replacing them.
Yes, it is critical to replace your sewage drain with modern piping material. However, you will no longer have to worry about waking up one day to a damaged sewer line in your yard. Our trenchless pipe replacement technique will cause less interruption to your lifestyle and yard. Consider rebuilding your sewer line now to avoid major backup problems in the future.
Don’t Put It Down The Drain
Know what you can and cannot pour down drains or flush in toilets to avoid clogs caused by solids. You will be able to prevent both local clogs in your pipes and backups for your entire home.
Pouring grease down the drain is never a good idea. Grease or oil flows smoothly like a liquid when heated. However, as it cools, it solidifies into a drain-clogging mass. If the clogged sewer occurs in the main line, a backup may occur. Check with your local waste authority for the proper way to dispose of used household grease or oil.
Your toilet is not a second bin. Other than toilet tissue and human waste, do not flush anything. Toilet paper, feminine products, diapers, and baby wipes may all easily clog a toilet or sewage line. Even flushable goods, such as damp toilet paper, might cause difficulties in your drainage system. To avoid blockages and other problems, keep a trash bin in your bathroom for all of these things.
Fix Drainage Problems Where Possible
The devices you put in place to avoid basement flooding may inundate your drainage system and produce backups the next time it rains heavily. Because of the possibility of flow reversals in your drains, flooding control devices should not drain to your sanitary line. If you have such a link, your house does not meet inspection standards. Have one of our plumbers bring your system up to code if you have illegally connected drains or sump pump outputs.
Correcting drainage connection issues will help avoid basement flooding from rainfall as well as sewage backup into your property. Furthermore, if you want to sell your house in the future, correcting these issues now will eliminate one more thing that you would need to solve to bring your property up to code in order to sell it.
Look Out For Tree Roots
Growing tree roots via pipes can badly damage your drainage system. However, due to the extensive nature of certain trees’ root systems, simply avoiding planting trees near your sewage line may not be enough to remedy the problem. There are a few things you can do to lessen the likelihood of roots damaging your sewage pipes.
If you have older clay or cast iron lines, replacing them with plastic can help prevent significant tree root problems. Newer piping’s smooth plastic allows tree roots to grow around it rather than through it. If you are not yet ready to repair older sewage lines, speak with a tree specialist about trimming roots that are growing near your sewer line. Do not try to do this yourself since locating the roots and cutting them in a way that does not hurt the tree are challenging chores for persons who are not specialists.
Contact Us
Sewer issues may make your day miserable. Contact The Brisbane Plumbers if you require emergency clogged sewer line repairs or assistance with any other plumbing issues. We have qualified plumbers that can come to your home and assess the situation and repair your sewage lines.
Clogged sewer cleanup frequently necessitates the use of specialised equipment that most homes do not have. Our plumbers have the tools and experience necessary to fix your home plumbing issues. Because we understand that plumbing problems frequently arise at inconvenient times, we provide 24-hour emergency assistance. The Brisbane Plumbers can be reached seven days a week, at any time of day or night, to despatch a plumber to your home to address your sewage problem.