Minor blocked drain can become a big headache, causing substantial damage to your home. It can also become a major inconvenience for you and your family.
Blocked drains are one of the most common plumbing issues we solve on a near daily and weekly basis for our clients. Many of the houses in Inner West Brisbane still have their house waste connected to old earthenware or clay pipe sewers. These can be notorious for allowing tree roots to grown inside if they are cracked due to earth movement and re-alignment. The best way to tackle this problem is to use a drain cleaning machine to remove the tree roots and allow a free run through the pipe for sewerage to flow. If the blockages continually occur, it may be worth considering getting the line replaced with PVC pipe.
A sewer line clog might be unseen, but it can cause extensive damage inside a property.
The average property owner probably knows that sewer lines help transport waste water from the property to underground sewer mains. Beyond that, most property owners give little thought to their sewer lines until they have some type of clog.
A sewer line clog could lead to a raw sewage backup coming out of the drains, which could lead to significant damage to the property and an expensive sewer line repair or replacement.
Property owners who understand and respond to their property’s early warning system can stave off severe sewer and plumbing issues.
It may take a while for a blockage to build up and become completely apparent, but once a problem has started to take its toll it will be obvious very quickly. Keep an eye – and ear, and nose – out for these symptoms, and don’t hesitate to take action.
The sights
One of the most obvious signs that a drain is blocked is if your toilet, shower, bath or sinks are draining slowly. If a blockage is particularly bad, water may not drain away at all. If just one of these things is having issues, then the blockage is likely in the fixture itself. However, if all of them are backed up, then the blockage is most likely to be in the sewer drain.
The toilet is often the main driver for a blockage – if flushing the toilet causes water to rise in the shower, or running taps causes the water in the toilet to rise, then you’ve got a blocked drain on your hands. Essentially, if any water-based appliances are causing water to appear elsewhere when used, there’s a problem. Don’t forget to check external drains and manhole covers (from the outside – you should never go inside manholes) on your property – if there’s a blockage, water will start to rise here too.
Foul Odour
The most unpleasant symptom of all – foul smells are a dead giveaway for a blocked drain. If something has blocked the drain and begun to rot, you will certainly know about it. The bad smell may well begin to occur before any visual symptoms emerge, so if you start to catch whiffs of something being a little bit off then don’t ignore it.
Gurgling Sound
Finally, if your pipes and fixtures sound different to usual, it could be an indication of a blockage. Gurgling noises from drains, plug holes, toilet flushes and pipes are early warning signs – the sound is created when air trapped in the pipes by the blockage is displaced and pushed up through the system.
Any one of these symptoms on their own is cause for concern, but if you’re noticing two – or even all three – then you may well have a plumbing emergency on your hands.
Suburbs we serve: The Gap, Paddington, Ashgrove, Red Hill, Indooroopilly, Kenmore, Toowong, St.Lucia
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