Anaheim Drain Cleaning

Drain cleaning in Anaheim covers everything from a kitchen sink that holds water to a main sewer line that pushes sewage up into the shower. The first thing we ask is whether one fixture is slow or several are acting up at once. That answer usually tells us which pipe is blocked and which tool to bring.

One drain or the whole house

A single slow fixture points to a clog close by, in the trap or the branch line inside the wall. When the tub fills as the washing machine empties, or the toilet gurgles while the kitchen sink drains, the blockage is usually further down, in the main line or the lateral that carries everything to the street. The lowest drain in the house, often a shower or a floor drain, tends to overflow first.

• Kitchen: grease, rice, coffee grounds and food scraps that got past the disposal.
• Bathroom sinks and tubs: hair knotted together with soap film.
• Toilets and the main line: wipes, paper towels and, in older clay pipe, roots.
• Laundry: lint and fibers that settle in the standpipe.

Anaheim’s housing, and what is under it

SCAG’s housing profile counts 110,745 homes in Anaheim and puts about 70 percent of them in buildings finished before 1980, with the 1950s alone close to a quarter. Tract houses from those years, many of them in West Anaheim between Euclid Street and the Cypress line, often have cast-iron drains indoors and a clay lateral outside. Cast iron grows rust scale on its inner wall that snags paper and grease. Clay lets roots in at the joints.

Anaheim Hills is younger, begun in 1971 on graded hillside land. The Anaheim Colony district downtown is far older, laid out on the 1857 colony grid with more than a thousand historic structures. A camera tells us which kind of pipe we are dealing with before we choose a tool.

The pipe to the street is yours, all of it

The City of Anaheim’s sewer lateral guide puts the owner in charge of the whole lateral, including the part beneath the street. It also points out that these pipes are only 4 to 6 inches across, so a wad of wipes and cooled grease the size of a fist can stop one completely. City crews look after the public mains. Sewage rising out of a manhole, or a manhole with no cover, is a job for Public Works Operations at (714) 765-6860.

Cable or water

For a hair clog or a sink trap, a hand auger or a small cable machine is the right tool and the simplest one. For a main line that has backed up before, a cable often bores a hole through the blockage and leaves grease and root fibers on the walls, so the clog returns. Cleaning the full width of the pipe with hydro jetting lasts longer, provided the camera shows the pipe is sound. Our article on jetting versus snaking goes into that choice.

What happens when we arrive

We ask which drains are acting up and when it started, then find the clean-out. An obvious fixture clog gets cleared at the fixture, and we run water to confirm. For a main-line problem the camera goes in, the line gets cleared with a cable or a jetter, and a second look with the camera shows you the cleaned pipe. When the video shows pipe that has cracked through or caved in, cleaning is not the fix, and we talk through sewer repair. Significant lateral work should be permitted, and in Anaheim that goes through the Building Division of Planning and Building.

Keeping the kitchen line clear

OC San, which treats the city’s wastewater, asks residents never to pour fats, oil or grease into a sink or a garbage disposal. Its advice is to wipe pans with a paper towel before washing and to pour cooled grease into a can for the trash. That habit does more for a kitchen drain than any bottle from the hardware store.

Our jetting special is $299 for a line cleared from an accessible clean-out, covering up to 75 feet; terms apply, and details are on the coupons page. For drain cleaning anywhere in Anaheim, phone (888) 300-9648; someone picks up around the clock.