Having a clogged sewer drain can be a bad experience. It’s not only a plumbing issue you have at hand; there are various health risks a blockage in your home drains can pose—treat it as a serious problem.
When your drain lines clog, waste, with no way to get to the lowest point, will usually back up through floor drains into your plumbing fixtures. The first thing you should do when this happens is to stop using your house’s plumbing fixtures until you’ve done some sewer line cleaning.
Meanwhile, there are several indicators of a main sewer line blockage. Knowing these warning signs can help detect the issue early on before it gets worse and save you a lot of money on drain cleaning and repairs.
This article will explore the causes and symptoms of a clogged main sewer system and tell you what to do when your main sewer line is blocked. But first, you must know where your main sewer line is and how to locate it.
Where is The Main Sewer Line in a Colorado House?
Most likely, if you live in Colorado, your home’s main sewer line is found in one of the following three locations: the basement, crawl space, or garage. A pipe with a screw cap, a notch or square knob, and a diameter of roughly four inches is what you should look out for.
Be aware that some homes have a sewer cleanout point, but others might not. It’s also feasible to live without one entirely.
The likelihood is that the main sewer line is in your yard if you can’t find it inside your home. You can often find sewage line access points outside the home at the house’s foundation or close to the street where the sewer line connects with the public sewer main.
Typically, the sewer line will protrude from the ground and be easy to identify, but overgrown vegetation or things adjacent to the home may obscure the cap. Or you could have an underground sewer cleanout. Try looking on the side of the house nearest the bathroom on the first level.
There are a few options if you still can’t locate your main sewer line, whether in your home or yard. You can contact either the Arvada drain and sewer services provider, the previous owner, go to your local city hall, or hire a licensed plumber.
What Causes a Clogged Sewer Line?
Whenever there’s a clogged sewer line, it’s usually one or two of these culprits:
1. Tree roots
Tree roots are top on the list of suspects in sewage line clogs. They can penetrate through a broken pipe, even if it’s the tiniest of fractures or loose joints around the pipe, to get the warmth and moisture provided by sewer lines. However, by spreading out to feed on the abundant nutrients in the sewer, they can cause a main line blockage in your sewer system.
2. FOG
Another causative agent in sewer line clogs is FOG, as we call it in the plumbing industry, which refers to fats, oil, and grease. It would be best if you didn’t run these things down your septic system mindlessly with hot water. While FOGs appear liquid when hot, they solidify as soon as they cool and can build up in the pipe, leaving your main sewer line blocked.
3. Foreign objects
You shouldn’t flush certain things down the toilet, like baby wipes, facial tissues, paper towels, extra-thick toilet paper, diapers, pads, and tampons, which can easily clog your pipes.
4. Plumbing issues and old sewer lines
If you reside in one of these older homes, you should check to ensure that the piping system is in good shape. Old sewer pipes will indeed have cracks and breaks — that’s the destructive power of time. Ignoring a pipe change when you notice it’s old will eventually collapse a complete piping system. In addition, employ a professional Arvada drain and sewer service to review your plumbing connections. An incorrect link can cause a clogged sewage line.
How Do I Know If I Have a Main Sewer Line Clog?
Before a complete breakdown, here are some tell-tale signs you’ve got a clogged drain:
● Gurgling noise: Gargling, glugging, and gurgling sounds coming from your toilets are some of the signs of a sewage line clog.
●Malodorous smells: If you can smell sewage from your plumbing fixtures, especially your toilet water, it usually means you have some plumbing problems.
●Slow drain: When you experience low water pressure in more than one drain in your home, this is also an indicator that your sewer line is clogged.
●Blackwater: When using the washing machine or flushing the toilet, you may notice some blackish water backing up through multiple drains, such as your floor drain and shower drain, into your kitchen sink, tub, or bathroom sink. This blackish water is raw sewage coming back up, which is a surefire sign you have clogged drain lines.
Seek Professional Help
If you suspect a blockage in your sewer line or see signs of a sewage clog, we recommend calling a professional plumber for a sewer line cleanout. A drain cleaning service will help unblock drain pipes and keep your sewer clean.
We don’t advise you to try a DIY approach to your plumbing system because you don’t know how to find these blockages or how bad they can get. Also, you don’t have the special equipment required, such as a pipe wrench and drain snake, for a significant clog fix. While you might want an easy fix with no cost, you also don’t want to worsen the problem.
Got a sewer line clogging issue? Call the best Arvada drain and sewer services in Colorado for your drain cleaning. From a broken sink, to a sewer backup, burst pipe, or sewer clog, to leaky toilet valves, we are the right plumber for the job. With MyArvadaPlumber, you can be sure of nothing less than professional service from the best plumbing company in Colorado. Call us right away!