If sewage is backing up into your house, stop using every tap, toilet and appliance straight away, because any water that goes down a drain comes back up through the lowest one. When it appears in a tub, shower or floor drain rather than at one sink, the blockage is almost always in the main sewer line, and plunging the fixture will not clear it.
This is what to do in the first few minutes, how to work out where the blockage is, and what a plumber does to clear it.
Stop all water use, now
Tell everyone in the house: no flushing, no showers, no hand washing. Turn off the dishwasher and washing machine mid-cycle if they are running, because a washing machine draining is often what pushes a partly blocked line over the edge.
Water that cannot get out through the main line rises in the lowest drain in the house. In a single-storey home that is usually a shower or tub. In a two-storey home it can be a ground floor toilet or a laundry drain. As long as nobody adds water, the level stops rising.
Keep yourself safe
Sewage is a health hazard, not just a mess.
- Keep children and pets away from the affected room.
- Wear rubber gloves and boots if you have to go in, and wash your hands well afterwards.
- Stay away from electrics. If water has reached sockets, an extension cord or an appliance on the floor, switch that circuit off at the panel if you can do it from somewhere dry.
- Open a window if the room has one, and keep the door to the rest of the house shut.
- Do not pour chemical drain cleaner into a backed-up drain. It will not reach a main line blockage, and it turns the standing water into something caustic for whoever clears it.
Work out where the blockage is
A few quick checks tell you, and the plumber, a lot.
One fixture or several? A single slow sink or one toilet that will not drain is a local blockage in that fixture or its branch line. When the tub and the toilet back up together, or the shower fills when the toilet is flushed, the fault is further down, in the line they share.
Is anything gurgling? Gurgling from a tub or toilet when another fixture drains means air is being pushed back through the traps by a blocked main line.
Look at the cleanout. Most homes in the valley have a sewer cleanout: a capped pipe, usually three or four inches across, sticking out of the ground near the house or in a front yard bed. Do not force the cap off, because a line under pressure can spray. Just look. Water seeping around the cap, or a wet patch around it, means the blockage is between the cleanout and the street.
The cleanout is also the reason a main line job can be quick. With a cleanout, we clear the line from outside without pulling a toilet or working through the house.
Is it your line or the public main?
The pipe that carries waste from your house to the public sewer is the lateral, and in Los Angeles County it is yours. Los Angeles County Public Works states that sewer laterals "are entirely owned by the private property owner they serve" and that the owner is responsible for the entire length of the lateral, while its sewer maintenance district maintains the public mainlines (Los Angeles County Public Works, Sewer Maintenance customer information).
So in most backups the blockage is on your side, and clearing it is your call and your cost. There is one exception worth checking: if your neighbours are backing up at the same time, the problem may be in the public main. Report it to the agency that runs the sewer in your area before paying anyone, because a blocked main is theirs to clear.
What to tell the plumber
When you call, these answers let us bring the right equipment the first time:
- Which fixture the sewage is coming up through, and whether more than one is affected
- Whether there is a cleanout outside, and where
- Whether the house has backed up before, and roughly when
- Whether there are large trees between the house and the street
- The age of the home, if you know it, since older Newhall and North Hills homes often still have clay or cast iron laterals
Sewage backups go to the front of our schedule. We are open Monday to Saturday, 6 AM to 5 PM. If it happens outside those hours, keep all water use off and the line will hold until we get there.
What clearing a main line involves
A main line blockage usually takes one to three hours to clear, depending on the cause and the access.
- Find the access. The outside cleanout if there is one, otherwise a roof vent or a toilet pulled from the floor.
- Clear it. A cable machine cuts through most blockages. For hardened grease or heavy roots, high-pressure water scours the pipe wall clean instead of just punching a hole through. Our guide to hydro jetting or snaking explains the difference.
- Confirm the flow. We run water through several fixtures and make sure the line is draining properly before we leave.
Once the line is clear, you can use water again straight away.
When clearing it is not the end of it
A first backup is often grease, wipes or a single root mass, and a clearance fixes it. A second backup within a few months is different. A blockage that keeps coming back usually means something is wrong with the pipe itself: a crack that roots grow through, a section that has sagged and holds waste, or an old clay joint that has shifted.
That is when we put a camera down the line rather than clearing it again. The camera shows what the pipe looks like and where the fault is, so any repair is quoted against the footage rather than a guess. If the line needs a spot repair or replacement, that is our sewer line repair service. The post on why a drain keeps clogging covers the usual causes of repeat blockages.
Cleaning up and insurance
- Photograph everything before you clean, including the waterline on walls and anything damaged on the floor.
- Call your insurer early. Sewer backup cover is often an add-on rather than part of a standard homeowner policy, so check what yours includes before cleanup starts.
- Throw away porous items that sewage has soaked, such as rugs and bath mats. Hard floors can be cleaned and disinfected.
- Keep receipts for anything you buy or hire during the cleanup.
Keeping it from happening again
Most backups we clear are caused by the same three things:
- Grease from the kitchen sink, which sets on the pipe wall and narrows the line over months
- Wipes, including the ones sold as flushable
- Tree roots finding a crack in an older lateral
Keeping grease and wipes out of the drains prevents most of them. Roots need the pipe fixed, which is where the camera comes in.
Get your main line cleared
BluePoint Plumbing clears blocked main lines across the Santa Clarita Valley, Monday to Saturday, 6 AM to 5 PM, and cameras the line when a backup is a repeat. See our drain cleaning service in Santa Clarita, or contact us and tell us which drain it is coming up through.
