Tree roots in drains: how they get in and what actually fixes it
Roots find old clay joints, thicken into a mass and catch everything passing. Jetting clears them; unless the joint is repaired they come back.
Read the guideA few sensible checks will clear a fair number of blocked drains without a call-out — and the rest will tell you quickly that you need a jetting unit.
Start by working out how much of the system is affected. One slow sink is usually a local problem you can clear yourself. Several fixtures backing up at once means the blockage is in the main run outside, and that normally needs jetting rather than a plunger.
Before you buy a bottle of anything, walk round the house. Run the kitchen tap, flush an upstairs toilet, fill and empty a bath, and watch what happens. What you are trying to establish is whether one fixture is slow or whether everything is.
One fixture slow, everything else fine. The blockage is in that fixture’s own waste pipe or trap. That is a job you can usually do yourself.
Several fixtures slow, or the lowest one backing up. The blockage is in the shared run, which means outside, underground, and beyond the reach of anything you can buy in a shop. A downstairs shower tray or ground floor toilet filling when you run the washing machine is the classic sign.
Everything slow and you are off mains drainage. Check the tank before you touch the drains. A full septic tank backs water up the pipe and looks exactly like a blockage, because effectively it is one.
Most people give up on a plunger too early. Block the overflow with a wet cloth so the pressure goes down the pipe rather than out of the hole, make a proper seal, and work it firmly twenty or thirty times. Short, half-hearted plunging achieves nothing.
Under a sink, the U-bend unscrews. Put a bucket under it, take it off, and in a kitchen you will usually find a plug of grease and food. In a bathroom it is nearly always hair. This single job clears a large share of “blocked drains” that people were about to pay for.
If the kitchen sink has gone slow gradually over weeks, it is fat. A kettle of hot (not boiling — boiling water can damage plastic waste pipes and seals) water with a good squirt of washing-up liquid, repeated a few times, will shift a surprising amount of it.
This is the single most useful thing you can do, and most people never do it. If the chamber nearest the house is empty, the blockage is between the house and that chamber. If it is full, the blockage is downstream of it. Work your way along the run and you can tell any drainage firm exactly where the problem is — which saves time and money when they arrive.
High-pressure water jetting is not just a stronger plunger. It cuts roots, strips fat off the pipe wall and flushes silt out of the run, which is why a jetted drain usually stays clear far longer than a rodded one. It is the right tool for fat in a kitchen run, roots through an old clay joint, silt in a yard gully, and for any blockage in a main run under a building or driveway.
If the drain blocks again soon after, the sensible next step is a camera rather than another jet. A CCTV survey shows exactly what is catching the waste — a root mass, a dropped joint, a flattened section of pipe — so the repair can be priced properly instead of guessed at.
On a property with a septic tank or treatment plant, the tank is part of the drainage system and it is usually the first thing to check. Lift the lid: if the level is up near the inlet, the tank is full or the outfall is blocked, and no amount of work on the house drains will help. That is a tanker job, and often a drainage field problem underneath it.
We answer the phone 24 hours a day for exactly this sort of thing — and if a few minutes on the phone saves you a call-out, we would rather tell you that. 07884 111 641.
Generally you are responsible for the drains inside your property boundary. Shared drains beyond it, and sewers, are usually the water company’s. Off mains, the whole system — drains, tank and drainage field — is yours.
In quantity, yes. Caustic and strongly antibacterial products kill the bacteria the tank relies on to break solids down. Occasional normal household cleaning is fine; pouring bleach down regularly is not.
We take emergency call-outs 24/7 across Derbyshire, Sheffield and Nottinghamshire, and we run our own jetting units and tanker, so we are not waiting on a subcontractor.
Easily, through the joints of old clay pipes. They are drawn to the moisture, and once a fine root is in it grows into a mass that catches everything passing. Jetting with a cutting nozzle clears it; if the joint is open, it will come back and the pipe needs repairing.
Septic tank emptying, installations, servicing and drainage across Derbyshire, Sheffield and Yorkshire — 24/7.
Roots find old clay joints, thicken into a mass and catch everything passing. Jetting clears them; unless the joint is repaired they come back.
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