Blocked and clogged drains can be a hassle in Toronto
Especially if you suffer from Tree Roots in Drains!
Hi, I’m Calvin from Hoerner Heating & Plumbing. It’s early spring and that means an influx in root growth, during this time of year we get lots of calls for blocked and
The first step in root removal is to locate your problem area, occasionally blockages occur within the home, but most root related problems occur in between your house out to the city line. To locate the problem area we use a specialized camera that is sent down the drain from the nearest clean out. When the blockage has been found with the camera, a locator is used above ground to pinpoint directly where the blockage is, as well as the path that the snake (aka drain snake or sewer snake) will take on route to the blockage. We can help you identify the source of clogged drains with our techniques.
Tree roots like to make their way into your clay sewer drains, through cracks and joints (and apply pressure on clay pipes cracking them). Techniques such as product applications (like RootX) to your drains can help prevent root growth but are only tentative measures in deterrence.
Snaking a drain may be way to clear it of debris and removing the clay piping, but it is not a permanent solution. You may ask how do I clear tree roots in drains?
Now that we know where the problem is, we can remove the camera and start feeding our drain snake cable down the clean out. There are a variety of heads that can be attached to the cable for a variety of blockages. Now that we have the proper head on our cable we put gloves and position our electrical snake no more than two feet from our clean out. When feeding the cable into the clean out, we feed several feet of cable into the drain and turn on the auger in the forward setting. The reverse setting should only be used if the cable gets stuck and only for several seconds at a time.
When the blockage is met and you cannot push the cable any further we give the cable a little extra slack to ensure spinning, and we drive the cable into the roots. Pulling back the cable and forcing the spinning head into the blockage will take several attempts to clear the drain, and increasing the size of the heads can help to alleviate the roots.
Flushing water down the drain and then using the camera for a final inspection should show the cleared drain. Adding some formula down the drain after snaking will help to prevent root and waste build-up. An application of RootX can be used to further clear roots. Although this is not permanent solution it often can alleviate the immediate back-up and mess, and sometimes for years. For a permanent solution, we can expose the drain by digging and replace the problem section. In some instances if the pipe is straight and has some problem areas we can install a liner from inside the house to the property line which saves a lot of digging and eliminate tearing up expensive walkways, driveways and gardens, etc.
See our services page about Tree Roots in Sewer Lines and Digs
Read our article about Tree Roots in Sewer Lines and Digs