Drain Cleaning
Clearing slow or blocked sinks, tubs, showers and floor drains, and identifying why the blockage formed in the first place.
A drain that gurgles, empties slowly or backs up is rarely a single event. Waste builds a lining inside the pipe over months, and the last handful of grease, hair or wipes simply closes the remaining gap. Clearing the obstruction restores flow; identifying the lining decides how long that flow lasts.
Drain cleaning as a service category covers fixture drains (sinks, basins, baths, showers, floor gullies) and the branch lines that connect them to the main waste stack. Where the problem sits beyond that branch line, in the building drain or the sewer lateral, the work moves into sewer services.
Symptoms
Signs this is the right service
- Water pools around the plughole and drains away only after the tap is turned off
- Gurgling from a nearby fixture when another one empties
- Recurring odours from a rarely used sink, gully or floor drain
- Two or more fixtures on the same branch slowing down at the same time
- Waste backing up into a lower fixture such as a shower tray or basement drain
What the work covers
Methods and scope
Which method applies depends on what the system is doing, the materials involved and the condition of the pipework.
- Mechanical cabling (snaking)
- A flexible cable with a cutting or retrieving head is fed into the line to break through the obstruction. It is the usual first approach for hair, soap and food blockages in fixture and branch drains, and it works well where the pipe itself is sound.
- Hydro jetting
- High-pressure water scours the full internal diameter of the pipe rather than boring a hole through the middle of the debris. It suits grease-lined kitchen lines and long horizontal runs, and is chosen only after the pipe material and condition have been assessed.
- Camera inspection
- A push camera confirms whether a line was blocked by soft debris, root intrusion, a collapsed section, a sagging run holding water, or a fitting installed against the fall. It turns a repeat blockage into a diagnosis rather than a guess.
- Trap and fixture work
- Some blockages are inside the trap, waste arm or pop-up assembly rather than the pipe. These are dismantled, cleared and reassembled with fresh seals where the components are still serviceable.
Process
How the work is sequenced
Describe the symptoms
Which fixtures are affected, how long it has been building and whether anything changed recently, such as a new appliance, renovation work or planting near the line.
Isolate the affected section
Testing fixtures one at a time narrows the blockage to a trap, a branch or the shared line before any equipment is chosen.
Clear the line
Cabling or jetting is selected to match the pipe material, diameter and the type of build-up found.
Verify flow
The line is run under load, with a full basin or bath emptied at once, rather than judged on a trickle of water.
Report what was found
A blockage caused by grease has a different prevention plan than one caused by root intrusion or a pipe defect.
Questions