A Guide to When a Sewer Drain Overflows:
Backed-up sewer drains do not fix themselves. A problem with your home's drainage has to be repaired urgently to stop the slow-flowing drain from completely blocking your homes entire plumbing system. A wholly blocked sewer line can cause sewerage to overflow into your house, making a health hazard and a cleaning nightmare. A blockage can cause severe contamination, filling your home with bacteria-laden sewage, causing toilets to overflow and fixtures to back up.
All modern housing has outgoing sewer drains. The sewer, or wastewater, lines move the used wastewater from your washing machine, sinks, shower, toilets and basins away from your dwelling. When the drains get blocked or damaged, wastewater will back up into your property. The results of sewage coming into your home include hygiene contamination, mould spores and flood damage, to name a few.
When your drains begin to block, you may notice telltale signs. While you may ignore these early signs of a blockage, you should not. Treating the blockage early before you have waste overflowing into your home is the right choice.
Slow draining bathroom fixtures are a vital sign you have a problem starting in your sewer lines. If only one fixture has a problem, you can sometimes repair it with a hair remover or a plunger. However, when an issue appears in all bathroom, kitchen and laundry drain, you have a sewer main line problem. Another sign of a blocked drain issue happens when sewerage backs up into another fixture when you flush the toilet. When waste comes up and overflows in your home, you don't have an urgent problem.
Who Should I call:
If your homes drain back up, it might not be your fault or your responsibility. Sometimes, the city main outside your property clogs or drains slowly, causing waste and water to back up into your property's drains. Municipality drains can fail from various causes. You can tell the problem comes from outside your boundary in the municipal sewer lines if the inspection opening near your border is full of water, indicating a drainage problem outside your boundary and in the city sewer. An empty inspection opening means the drain problem is on your side of the border.
Heavy rain from stormwater connected into the sewer can overwhelm the local sanitation sewage plant; when the system merges with stormwater runoff, it can reduce the flow rate. Slow flowing drainage can make wastewater build up and back up into your home.
Municipality sewer mains can block just as your home drains can, though this may rarely occur because municipal pipes are broader than those installed for homes. If you suspect a blockage past your boundary, contact the city water board to report the problem.
Collapsed Drains:
The soil supporting underdrains can wash away from heavy rains. Losing the supporting earth could cause a sinkhole and the drain lines to collapse. The damage in the pipe's structure blocks the sewer line, creating a backup of waste into your home.
While these causes are hard to predict, you may not have any warning when it begins to happen. The bright side of the situation outside your boundary is the city's sewer responsibility; you are not responsible for costs to have your plumbing repaired.
Blocked Drain Prevention:
Some blocked drains caused by your plumbing or the surrounding environment. You have more control in preventing blockages from these causes, but a professional plumber will have to fix the issue if a backup occurs.
Tree roots can infiltrate into earthenware sewer lines. You can prevent damage from roots by installing PVC drain lines outside your home or removing the roots' cause.
As solid as they seem, earthenware drains crack and separate and become brittle, making it easy for tree roots to find a way to grow into the drain.
Fats, oils and greases harden as they cool, creating large hard masses that make blockages in your pipes. Do pour grease or cooking oil down the sink. Also, do not flush anything down your toilet other than toilet paper and waste. Do not allow paper napkins, wet wipes or sanitary products to go down the toilet. Even if the manufacturer claims it to be flushable, they can still block the pipe. A poorly installed drainage system can lead to constant blockages. If you have drains with little or no fall or sized too small, waste from these will be accumulated and cause a blockage.
What to Do When You Have A Blocked Drain:
If you have a drain backup, act quickly. For slow-running drains, do not use chemical drain cleaners. These products only sometimes clear the drain if the blockage comes from a damaged pipe or tree roots. Additionally, chemical drain acids can cause further damage to pipes or a tradesman when they come to work on your drains.
Instead of using chemical treatments, try to use a plunger or a tool designed to pull hair from pipes. If neither works, call a drain cleaning plumber to resolve the issue. You may have a problem that needs specialised tools to repair.
For backups that overflow into your home, you need to stop any water going into the drains.
Use safety gear, heavy-duty rubber gloves, boots, goggles and a face mask — before entering the flooded area. To clean up the room, use a wet vacuum to remove liquids and solids. Until a plumber arrives to fix your drain, you cannot use the sinks, tubs, toilets, showers and basins in your home. The excess water will not flow away; the water will back up into your home. Because a toilet is used frequently in a home, getting a plumber urgently to perform repairs is vital to restoring normal operations.
How Plumbers Clear Backups:
When a plumber arrives, they will evaluate the situation and restore a flowing drain. Plumbers have many ways available to unblock drains, depending on the issue.
Hydro Jetting, this system safely clears a blocked drain using high-pressure water. Tree roots are easily removed by pressurised water a hydro jetter sends into the drain line.
Modern Hydro Jetters uses water to more effectively clean drains. A familiar plumbers drain snake only creates a hole in the blockage to allow water to pass through. Still, the Hydro Jetter, with the extra power of high-pressure water, thoroughly cleans drains, including any buildup on the sides of the pipes. Removing the buildup inside the lines increases the time before another blockage forms in your drains.
While you may not have a problem with earthenware sewer lines yet, the chances are, you will, in the future. Plumbers used earthenware clay pipes decades ago. They are more brittle than the modern PVC piping. Tree roots quickly infiltrate these old types of pipe material, and they are susceptible to cracking from movement in the surrounding ground.
Tree roots growing through pipes can seriously damage your drainage system. Due to the far-reaching root systems, you may not be able to stop the problem by merely planting trees away from your sewer line. There are ways to stop the chances of roots infiltrating your sewer lines.
Replacing earthenware drains with PVC plastic can prevent severe tree root infiltration. The plastic of newer piping makes tree roots grow around it instead of growing into it. If you cannot replace older sewer lines yet, consult with a tree professional about removing roots near your sewer line.
Conclusion:
A blocked drain can ruin your day.
Sewer backup cleaning needs specialised equipment with experience to use. Specialised drain cleaning should always be plumbers who have the equipment and expertise and are licensed and fully insured.
Author: King Plumbing Tasmania
