Clear it
High-pressure water jetting for roots, grease and scale, or a drain machine where that is the better tool. The drain runs again before anything else is discussed.
Jetting, drain machines and camera inspection — so you find out what caused the blockage instead of clearing the same drain again next season.
Clearing a blocked drain is the easy part. A drain machine or a jetter will open almost anything in half an hour. The question worth answering is why it blocked, because a drain that blocks once will usually block again.
In this part of Brisbane the answer is often roots. Older sewer and stormwater lines around the Redlands and the bayside suburbs are frequently earthenware, jointed every 600mm or so, and every one of those joints is somewhere a root can get in. Other times it is a collapsed section, a belly holding water, or simply what has been going down the sink.
Detail
High-pressure water jetting for roots, grease and scale, or a drain machine where that is the better tool. The drain runs again before anything else is discussed.
A CCTV camera down the line shows what is actually there — roots, a crack, a dropped joint, a belly, or nothing structural at all.
You see the footage. If the pipe is sound and the blockage was a one-off, that is what you are told, and there is nothing further to buy.
Where the pipe is damaged, the options are relining from the inside or excavating and replacing. Both are quoted before either starts.
Questions
Not a sound pipe. Jetting is pressure and water, and a pipe in good condition takes it without trouble. A pipe already cracked or collapsed can be made worse, which is one of the reasons the camera goes down afterwards rather than never.
No. A one-off blockage with an obvious cause does not need one. A drain that has blocked before, or one that fights back while being cleared, does — otherwise you are paying to clear the same pipe repeatedly without ever learning why.
Generally the pipework on your property is yours, up to the connection point. Which side of that line a blockage sits on is worth establishing before anyone starts work, and the camera settles it.
Yes — sewage backing up into the house is one. Call rather than fill in a form; the phone is answered around the clock.
Nearby
Describe the problem on the phone. If it can be sorted without a visit, it will be.
Licensed plumbing, drainage, pipe relining and roof plumbing across Brisbane and the surrounding councils — Redland, Logan, Moreton Bay and Ipswich. Based in Thorneside.
QBCC licence 15161521
Member, Master Plumbers’ Association of Queensland
ABN 44 526 011 279