Taking good care of the sewer line that services your Norwell, MA home is the key to avoiding many common plumbing issues. This line transports all of the wastewater and effluence that your household produces to the municipal sewer main. Blockages, cracks, and offset pipe sections can lead to dangerous whole-house backups, low-functioning drains, unpleasant odors, and more. To catch and correct sewer line problems before they spiral out of control, you can schedule a sewer line inspection. The following are six tell-tale signs that you need one.
1. Gurgling Drains
Beware of gurgling sounds coming from your toilets and drains. Although they seem harmless enough, they’re an indication of a partial sewer line blockage. As trapped wastewater finally clears built-up hair, sediment, silt, grease, or other debris, it often makes audible sucking or bubbling sounds.
With a sewer line inspection, our plumbers can identify the nature, size, and location of your sewer line blockage. We can also determine the best method for clearing it.
In some cases, bubbling and gurgling noises are the result of tree root encroachment. If weeds or tree roots have entered your sewer line via tiny cracks or offset sections, they’ll grow until they fill your sewer pipe completely. Although liquid waste can often get past complex networks of invasive roots, undissolved toilet paper, flushable wipes, and human waste can get snagged. Timely inspections allow plumbers to fix the problem before a whole-house backup occurs.
2. Standing Water in Your Yard
Cracked sewer pipes and sewer pipes with offset sections leach raw sewage and dangerous pathogens into local soils. You might have a cracked sewer pipe if you have standing water in your yard just above your sewer line. Alternatively, you may notice wet, marshy terrain that never completely dries.
Sewer line leaks can contaminate gardens and neighboring yards. They’ll also expose anyone who uses your lawn to harmful bacteria, fungi, viruses, and chemical contaminants.
Although the effluence that leaks from sewer lines is harmful to humans, it’s also rich with nutrients that plants can readily use. Thus, in addition to standing water and muddy spots, you might notice a sudden increase in nearby vegetation. If your lawn looks especially verdant or if the surrounding shrubs and weeds experience sudden and significant growth, have your sewer line inspected right away.
3. Pungent Sewer Gas Odors
Sewer line leaks and impending whole-house backups can fill homes and yards with pungent sewer gas odors. Sewer gas smells a lot like rotten cabbage or rotten eggs. If you smell it outdoors, there’s a good chance that you have an offset or cracked sewer pipe.
Sewer gas odors in the interior of the building could indicate a sewer line leak just beneath your slab or trapped wastewater in your pipes. When sewer line obstructions cause whole-house backups, they prevent wastewater from completely exiting the home. During the early stages of a whole-house backup, you might have raw sewage sitting stagnant just several feet or inches away from your fixtures’ drains.
4. Multiple Slow-Moving Drains
Slow-moving drains are a fairly normal occurrence in high-use plumbing systems. Over time, buildups of body oils, soap scum, hair, and other organic materials gradually decrease the interior diameter of pipes. When wastewater has less room to move through, shower pans, sinks, and bathtubs take a lot longer to empty.
However, if all of your drains start moving slowly simultaneously, you’re poised to experience a whole-house backup. During these events, effluence comes rushing back into all drains, fixtures, and plumbing-connected appliances throughout homes.
5. Frequent Drain Clogs
Frequent clogs may be a sign of sewer line problems. If you have a single drain or fixture that regularly experiences blockages or overflows, it might be time to replace the offending drain or fixture. But, if you have recurring clogs throughout the building, this could mean that larger waste can’t clear your sewer pipe. Scheduling a sewer line inspection will tell you where the problem lies. It will also save you money on repeated drain snaking or drain jetting services.
6. A Wet Foundation
All of the drains in your Norwell home converge onto your sewer line. This pipe travels under your slab and then underground to the municipal sewer main. While cracks and offset sections that occur outside of your home will leave you with standing water in your yard, sewer line damage that occurs beneath your slab will leave you with a wet foundation.
If left unchecked, a slab leak can affect the integrity of your home all the way to its roofing. As your slab increasingly deteriorates, you’ll notice settlement cracks in your drywall, ill-fitting windows and door frames, and loose flashing and roof tiles. Unchecked slab leaks also increase indoor humidity and set the stage for pervasive mold and mildew problems.
What Is a Sewer Line Inspection?
During a sewer line inspection, we’ll send a tiny camera into your sewer line that’s attached to a long, flexible scope. This camera will capture real-time footage of the interior of your sewer pipe to reveal:
- The age, type, and degradation of plumbing materials
- Cracks and offset sections
- Buildups on pipe walls
- Rust and other corrosion
- Obstructions caused by slow-degrading or non-degradable materials
For blockages and impending whole-house backups, plumbers can use rooter service or hydro-jetting to eliminate trapped items.
Hydro-jetting uses high-pressure water to flush out debris and open pipe interiors. With pressure levels as high as 3,500 psi, hydro-jetting isn’t suitable for aging or badly degraded pipes.
Rooter service breaks through tree roots and other tough clogs. We can send a long, flexible auger into sewer lines that pierces and demolishes stubborn accumulations. Keep in mind that this isn’t the best treatment option for pipes with protective coatings as the sharp tips on augers could scratch these coatings off.
Before starting sewer line repairs, we use sewer line camera inspections to inform our work. This way, the repair method we choose won’t cause more problems than it solves.
Sewer Line Service Is Both Corrective and Preventative
Sewer line service isn’t just for identifying and correcting existing plumbing problems. It’s also a preventative treatment and an important part of your ongoing home maintenance. To stay ahead of whole-house backups, limit your plumbing repair costs and protect your property from unnecessary damage. You should schedule a sewer line inspection every 18 to 22 months.
You should also schedule a sewer line inspection:
- Before or after purchasing pre-existing construction
- Ahead of major plumbing upgrades
- Before or after radically altering your landscape
The Benefits of Scheduling Sewer Line Inspections
Whether you use sewer line inspections to correct plumbing problems or prevent them, these inspections save homeowners money. They help plumbers find the most appropriate and least invasive maintenance and repair options. In the event of impending whole-house backups and tree root encroachment, they also put sewer line problems to an end before they damage floors, sub-floors, baseboards, foundations, and more.
Homeowners in Norwell and the surrounding cities can count on us for expert plumbing repair and sewer line services. We also offer kitchen and bathroom remodeling services, water heaters, boilers, and cutting-edge water quality systems. If you need a sewer line inspection, get in touch with Pilgrim Plumbing, Inc. today!
