What actually happens when a drain company turns up

Drain work is one of those trades most people only encounter when something has already gone wrong, which means the first time you see it done is usually a bad day. There is no mystery to it, and knowing the shape of a call in advance makes it easier to tell whether the one happening in your house is going well.

First, questions, not equipment

The opening few minutes of a good drain call are conversation. Which fixture is failing. What else in the house is affected. Whether it came on gradually or overnight. Whether this has happened before, and if so when and what was done about it. Whether the property has mature trees near the sewer run.

None of that is small talk. It is the difference between working a branch line and working a main, and getting it wrong means clearing a pipe that was never blocked. A homeowner who has noticed what the house is doing shortens this part considerably.

Finding the cleanout

A cleanout is an access point deliberately built into the drainage system so it can be worked on without dismantling anything. Outside, it is usually a capped pipe standing a little proud of the ground near the foundation, or a round cover set flush into a path or apron. Inside, it may be in a basement or a crawl space.

Where we open the system depends on what the questions established. A single failing fixture is often worked from that fixture. A main line problem is worked from a cleanout on the main. Choosing correctly is why the questions came first.

If you know where your cleanout is, saying so on the phone genuinely saves time. Plenty of homeowners have never had reason to identify it, and that is completely normal.

The cable goes in, and then comes back through

The working part of the job is running a cable down the line. What matters is less dramatic than it sounds: not whether the water starts moving, but how far out the line is worked and whether it is pulled back through afterwards.

A blockage will often let a cable pass and close again behind it. If the cable goes out to the first thing that gives and comes straight back, the drain will run, and the pipe will still be lined with whatever was narrowing it. Running to the length the line actually needs, and pulling back through, is what returns the full bore. It is slower, and it is the whole difference between a repair and a delay.

Confirming it, and putting things back

• Water is run through the line properly, not just briefly, because a line that passes a cupful and a line that passes a full tub are not the same line.
• The cleanout is capped back up. An uncapped cleanout is a smell and a hazard, and it is an easy thing to leave undone in a hurry.
• The ground that was worked over is rinsed off. Drain work is dirty and the mess belongs to whoever made it.
• You get told what was found. Roots, grease, or a plain blockage are three different futures for that pipe, and you are the one who has to live with it.

What is reasonable to ask while someone is there

Homeowners are often reluctant to ask questions during a job, on the grounds that it might look like checking up on someone. It does not, and the questions worth asking are short. How far out did the line get worked. What was actually in it. Is this something you would expect to see again on this property, and if so what would make it come back sooner.

Those three answers are the whole value of having had somebody inside your drainage system. A tradesman who has just spent an hour working a line knows things about that line which nobody else will ever know, and most of it walks out of the door with him unless somebody asks. It costs a minute of conversation to keep it.

What a good call leaves behind

A drain that runs, a capped cleanout, clean ground, and an honest description of what the line is like. That last one is the part that is easiest to skip and the part worth the most. If your sewer has roots, you want to know. If your kitchen line was heavily coated, you want to know that too, because it tells you what to change and roughly what to expect.

At Clean-Rite the person quoting the work is the person doing it. Don Gardner Jr. and Don Gardner III are a father and son with more than sixty years of drain and sewer work between them, and the company has been family owned and operated across three generations in the South County area of Rhode Island. Call to schedule, weekends included.