Throughout your home are drain pipes (or lines) that remove water and waste you’ve washed down your fixtures, including your sinks, toilets, bathtubs, and so on. Your drain lines carry your waste all the way to your sewer line, which then transfers your waste to your local sewage system. Unfortunately, your sewer line can clog, making your drains useless. Even worse, the sewage you thought you had rid of can back-up, and even return through your faucets! YUCK.
Sewer line clogs have a few causes, including soil shifting, pipe corrosion, high traffic above your pipe, and damaged pipe joints. To prevent the worst, it’s good to know what the red flags are for a clogged sewer line. This isn’t a problem that’s simply fixable on your own and requires a professional plumber with access to special equipment. Keep on the lookout for the following signs so that you know when to call your trusted plumbing professional before matters get worse.
Signs Your Sewer Line May Be Clogged
Here are a few warning signs to watch for if you’re noticing anything unusual about your drains. These will help you get a sewer line problem fixed before it becomes a messy disaster throughout your home.
Gurgling Sounds
If your sewer line is clogged enough, you’ll likely have air bubbles traveling through your pipes as you continue to use your drains. You’ll hear odd sounds that seem to be coming from your fixtures, even long after you’ve stopped using them. A gurgling sound from your drain is most common, but you might also hear hissing, bubbling, or trickling.
Clogged Plumbing Fixtures
If you don’t notice a sewer line clog for a long time, your drains will eventually no longer work. Your wastewater won’t drain anywhere as it can’t travel through your drain lines. And since every one of your fixtures connects to your one sewer line, all your sinks, bathtubs, toilets, etc. are all affected and unable to properly drain.
Slow-Moving Drains
A way to avoid having a completely clogged home is to pay attention to any slow drains in any of your fixtures. This means there’s only partial blockage potentially in your sewer line. So your wastewater is still drainable, but you’re on your way to complete blockage if it isn’t taken care of soon enough.
One way to tell if it’s either a fixture drain clog or an actual sewer line blockage is if you notice slow-moving drains or gurgling sounds in multiple fixtures throughout your home at once. If you’re noticing these symptoms in multiple drains throughout your home, you’ve likely got a clogged sewer line.
Dark or Discolored Water
Probably the worst symptom of a clogged sewer line that you’ll want to completely avoid is having backed-up sewage return through your drain line and into your shower or tub. Essentially, your wastewater has nowhere to drain and will flow back into the nearest point of entry, which is normally a low-level drain in your home. Since your wastewater is carrying waste from fixtures such as your toilets, your water will be dark, discolored, and smelly. Ew! This can be hazardous, so make sure you contact a professional plumber ASAP and use proper protective gear when directly handling and cleaning up any sewage backflow.
What to Do When Your Sewer Line is Clogged
Turn Off Your Water: To ensure matters don’t get worse, disable your main water line to prevent more overflow than may have already occurred. Because you most likely have a habit of using your sinks or toilet multiple times a day, you might forget and add more water to your problem! It also helps keep leaky pipes and automatically draining appliances – like your dishwasher or washing machine – at bay.
Find your water main, which is normally found near your water meter or a corner of your home, and turn the lever until it’s completely off.
Call a Plumber
Unfortunately, when you’ve got a sewer drain clog on your hands, you’ll need professional plumbing services to take care of it. Usually these sorts of clogs are caused by corroded or damaged pipes, tree roots, and other major problems requiring specialized equipment that can reach all the way down to your sewer drain pipe.
You’re better off playing it safe having a professional plumber assess and resolve your sewer clogging than potentially creating bigger problems attempting a DIY sewer line fix.
Are Your Main Sewer Lines Clogged? Contact Deer Valley Plumbing
At Deer Valley Plumbing, we provide top-quality, same-day services for commercial and residential plumbing emergencies. Our plumbing technicians are experienced and certified to handle any plumbing problem bound to come your way. If you have a clogged drain, suspect one, or only need professional drain cleaning and drain snaking services to clean the lines, check out our drain cleaning services! We’re always standing by to lend a helping hand! Call today! Not near one of our locations? Well, check out our friends over at ACS Home Services!
We offer drain cleaning services in the following areas:
Cave Creek
Tempe
Anthem
Glednale
Paradise Valley
Peoria
Phoenix
Scottsdale
Sun City
Surprise
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