When sewage starts coming back up your floor drain, the toilet won't flush, and that smell hits you in the laundry room, you don't have time to read a brochure. You need it stopped, and you need it stopped now. A sewer backup is the one plumbing problem that gets worse by the hour, and it doesn't care that it's a Sunday night.
We're local Colton plumbers, and we run sewer backup cleanup calls all over town, from the older blocks in South Colton to the newer slabs out near Cooley Ranch. We answer the phone 24/7, we come out same day, and we tell you straight what's going on down there.
Call (207) 419-2600 and we'll get a truck rolling.
Why Sewer Lines Back Up in Colton
A backup means waste has nowhere to go. Something downstream is blocking the main line that carries everything out of your house, so the next flush or shower has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is the lowest drain in your home. A lot of times that's a shower pan, a floor drain in the garage, or the toilet in the back bathroom. Once you see water rising in one of those, the line is already plugged.
Out here, the usual culprits are roots and old pipe. Plenty of homes in North Colton and the neighborhoods off Mount Vernon were built when sewer mains were run in clay. Clay pipe joints leak just enough moisture to draw tree roots, and those roots wedge into the joint and grow into a mat that catches everything. Add in our clay-heavy soil that swells and shifts with every wet winter and dry summer, and those old joints pull apart or sag into a low spot that collects grease and sludge.
Here's how we fix it. First we stop the backup so it stops doing damage. Then we clear the line with a cable or a high-pressure water jetter, depending on what's blocking it. Then, and this is the part a lot of outfits skip, we run a camera down the line to find out exactly why it backed up, so you're not mopping up the same mess again next month.
Signs Your Sewer Line Is Backing Up
- Multiple drains are slow or gurgling at the same time, not just one fixture
- Water or sewage rises in a shower, tub, or floor drain when you flush a toilet
- Your toilet bubbles or the water level drops when the washer drains
- A sewage smell in the lowest part of the house, often the garage or laundry area
- Water backing up around the floor drain or the cleanout in the yard
- Every drain in the house seems sluggish, even after you've snaked one of them
